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    Mahakali is typically depicted in Indian art as having a blue/black complexion with four arms carrying weapons like a sword, trident, and severed head. She has disheveled hair, fangs, and a lolling tongue dripping blood from demons she has consumed. She wears a garland of severed demon heads and a skirt made from their arms. Her ten-headed form represents the ten Mahavidyas and has thirty eyes and legs, holding weapons of different Hindu gods. She stands on the body of Shiva, representing Shakti/creative power activating the inert consciousness of Shiva. In Kashmir Shaivism, her highest form Kalasankarshini is formless flame above Guhya

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    Mahakali is typically depicted in Indian art as having a blue/black complexion with four arms carrying weapons like a sword, trident, and severed head. She has disheveled hair, fangs, and a lolling tongue dripping blood from demons she has consumed. She wears a garland of severed demon heads and a skirt made from their arms. Her ten-headed form represents the ten Mahavidyas and has thirty eyes and legs, holding weapons of different Hindu gods. She stands on the body of Shiva, representing Shakti/creative power activating the inert consciousness of Shiva. In Kashmir Shaivism, her highest form Kalasankarshini is formless flame above Guhya

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    125 views1 page

    Mahakali

    Uploaded by

    gaerth
    Mahakali is typically depicted in Indian art as having a blue/black complexion with four arms carrying weapons like a sword, trident, and severed head. She has disheveled hair, fangs, and a lolling tongue dripping blood from demons she has consumed. She wears a garland of severed demon heads and a skirt made from their arms. Her ten-headed form represents the ten Mahavidyas and has thirty eyes and legs, holding weapons of different Hindu gods. She stands on the body of Shiva, representing Shakti/creative power activating the inert consciousness of Shiva. In Kashmir Shaivism, her highest form Kalasankarshini is formless flame above Guhya

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    of 1

    Mahakali is most often depicted in blue/black complexion in popular Indian art.

    Her most common four armed iconographic image shows each hand carrying variously a
    crescent-shaped sword, a trishul (trident), a severed head of a demon and a bowl or
    skull-cup (kapala) catching the blood of the severed head. Her eyes are described
    as red with intoxication and in absolute rage, Her hair is shown disheveled, small
    fangs sometimes protrude out of Her mouth and Her tongue is lolling. The blood of
    the demons she slays drips out of her lolling tongue, having consumed it. She is
    adorned with a garland consisting of the heads of demons she has slaughtered,
    variously enumerated at 108 (an auspicious number in Hinduism and the number of
    countable beads on a Japa Mala, similar to a rosary, for repetition of Mantras) or
    50, which represents the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, Devanagari, and wears a
    skirt made of demon arms.

    Her ten headed (dasamukhi) image is known as Dasa Mahavidya Mahakali, and in this
    form She is said to represent the ten Mahavidyas or "Great Wisdom (Goddesse)s". She
    is sometimes shown sitting on a flaming grave or a rotting corpse. Her complexion
    is described as that of the night sky, devoid of stars. She is depicted in this
    form as having ten heads, thirty flaming eyes, ten arms, and ten legs but otherwise
    usually conforms to the four armed icon in other respects. Each of her ten hands is
    carrying an implement which varies in different accounts, but each of these
    represent the power of one of the Devas or Hindu Gods and are often the identifying
    weapon or ritual item of a given Deva. The implication is that Mahakali subsumes
    and is responsible for the powers that these deities possess and this is in line
    with the interpretation that Mahakali is identical with Brahman. While not
    displaying ten heads, an "ekamukhi" or one headed image may be displayed with ten
    arms, signifying the same concept: the powers of the various Gods come only through
    Her grace.

    In either one of these images she is shown standing on the prone, inert body of
    Shiva. This is interpreted in various ways but the most common is that Mahakali
    represents Shakti, the power of pure creation in the universe, and Shiva represents
    pure Consciousness which is inert in and of itself. While this is an advanced
    concept in monistic Shaktism, it also agrees with the Nondual Trika philosophy of
    Kashmir, popularly known as Kashmir Shaivism and associated most famously with
    Abhinavagupta. There is a colloquial saying that "Shiva without Shakti is Shava"
    which means that without the power of action (Shakti) that is Mahakali (represented
    as the short "i" in Devanagari) Shiva (or consciousness itself) is inactive; Shava
    means corpse in Sanskrit and the play on words is that all Sanskrit consonants are
    assumed to be followed by a short letter "a" unless otherwise noted. The short
    letter "i" represents the female power or Shakti that activates Creation. This is
    often the explanation for why She is standing on Shiva, who is her husband in
    Shaktism, and also the Supreme Godhead in Shaivism. Another understanding is that
    the wild destructive Mahakali can only stop her fury in the presence of Shiva the
    God of Consciousness, so that the balance of life is not completely overrun over by
    wild nature.

    In Kashmir Shaivism the highest form of Kali is Kalasankarshini who is nirguna,


    formless and is often show as a flame above the head of Guhya Kali the highest
    gross form of Kali. In Nepali Newar arts, both form and formless attributes of Kali
    is often envisioned in a single art form showing the hierarchy of goddesses in
    their tradition. In it Guhyakali image culminates in flame, with Kalasankarshini,
    the highest deity in the sequence, who consumes time within herself and is
    envisioned solely as a flame representing Para Brahman.[1] She is like a divine
    actress in her own universal play who assumes the form/role of Sristi Kali, Rakta
    Kali, Yama Kali, Samhara Kali, Mrityu Kali, Rudra Kali, Mahakaala Kali, Paramaraka
    Kali, Kalagnirudra Kali, Martanda Kali, Sthitinasha Kali and
    Mahabhairavaghorachanda Kali who is none other than Kalasankarshini Kali

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