I want to know about why "Goddess" Kali is satisfied only by sacrificial rites - human sacrifice and animal sacrifice. How did all such rites start. Even the aboroginies of pacific islands have such animal sacrifices to appease the Gods. And what about the Muslim Korban day when they put down an animal to take the sins away.
The answer is never simple...She may be the ferocious aspect of Durga, and other things as well.
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Mother of the universe, Motherland
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Tapan Raychaudhuri[/FONT]
I remember a small terracotta image of the mother goddess Durga in her role as Mahishamardini, the slayer of the buffalo demon. I had seen this exquisite piece from Midnapur in Bengal at an exhibition on loan from somewhere else, probably the Victoria and Albert. I choose it as the starting point for this article on the role and changing perceptions of the deity in the cultural concerns of Bengali Hindus, the most persistent and ardent worshippers of the mother goddess in her several forms. She is worshipped especially as Durga Mahishamardini, who is perceived, for reasons which are not entirely clear, as the benign manifestation. Her more terrifying counterpart, Kali, the dark and naked goddess, rejoices only in wreaths of human heads. The topic, I think, might be of some interest to an international audience, not merely because there are some eighty million Bengali Hindus in this world, but because this ethnic group was probably the first non-European people in modern times to respond, often in very complex and unexpected ways, to contact with the West. The changing role of Durga and Kali in their political concerns in the course of the last two centuries is quite central to that unlikely story.
Worship of the Mother Goddess in Bengal, as elsewhere in the subcontinent, combines at least two very different traditions — the myths regarding gods and goddesses as contained in the body of sacred literature known as the Puranas and the highly abstract theological notions which merge into and explain those myths and constitute the basis for mystical regimes. I say at least, because beliefs and practices unrelated to the pantheon of Indo-Aryan deities are also believed to have contributed to these cults. The goddess Durga is known among other things as sarvasavaranam bhagavati, the goddess Bhagavati of the Savaras, a tribe of hunters. I shall ignore these ‘tribal’ influences, because this article is not meant to cover the complex history of Durga worship. I shall refer briefly to some aspects of that history only to clarify the context of my statements.
Of the two traditions I have mentioned, the one which is most evident in popular practice, especially in modern times, is traceable to the Puranas. The legend of Durga goes further back in time, in fact to the Vedic literature of pre-Christian millennia. The Aranyaka section of the Taittiriya Upanishad describes one goddess Durga who is resplendent like the raging fire. But the text which celebrates the glory of Durga as she is now worshipped is known as Devimahatmya, i.e., the glory of the goddess. It consists of thirteen chapters of the Markandeya Purana which probably dates back to the fifth century of the Christian era. In Bengal, this Puranic text, popularly known as the Chandi, describing inter alia the battle between the buffalo demon and the goddess which ends in the latter’s victory and the former’s destruction, is read out during the worship of the deity spread over three days in autumn. The goddess whose victory is thus celebrated is Mahamaya, the grand illusion which makes desire for possessions and procreation the innate quality of human beings and is thus responsible for the unsatisfactory and transient nature of this life. Her manifestation assumes many forms including that of the fierce deity, Kali. Her other name, according to the Purana, is Katyayani, Durga being an epithet: for she who delivers from misfortune. The worshipper also knows her as Bhagavati, the feminine of Bhagavan, the supreme deity.
The story of her triumph projects one particular strand in the mythology of ancient India, that of virodha bhakti, devotion manifest as its opposite, enmity. The Kalikapurana tells of an act of indiscretion by the mighty buffalo demon, Mahishasura. Dressed as a female, he seduced the disciple of a great sage who uttered an appropriate curse — that the demon would die at the hands of a female. He dreamt that the goddess Bhagavati with sixteen arms had cleft his head in two and was drinking the blood which poured forth. He considered this a great privilege and prayed to the goddess for a favour — that he should get a share of what humans offered her at the time of worship. The Devi granted her future victim’s prayer. The deity killed the buffalo demon not once but three times. On the third and last of these sacred occasions the deity appeared as Ugrachanda, the fiercely angry one with ten arms. This is the form in which she is worshiped. But the story does not end there because the demon saw her destroyer as a deity with a thousand arms. ‘Ten’, the commentators explain, is a notional figure connoting many. And a creature suffering death for the third time should of course be excused for exaggerating the number of arms possessed by his slayer. But his threefold death was well worth it. For as promised by the goddess, she secured for the poor devil a due share of her devotees’ offerings. The image of the avenging goddess as worshiped by her devotees includes that of the buffalo demon albeit at the receiving end of her ten weapons as also the claws of her mount, the lion. The demon too is an object of worship — a tribute to the principle of virodha bhakti, devotion manifest as enmity, and a characteristically Indian paradigm seeking to reconcile irreconcilables.
Two other Puranic myths are part of the belief system which sustains the worship of Durga Bhagavati, especially in Bengal. One refers to the legend of Sati, Siva’s consort and the daughter of King Daksha. Siva, anguished by her death, takes the body on his shoulders and performs his cosmic dance of destruction until Vishnu, god the preserver, cuts the body up with his chakra or wheel into fifty-two pieces. These pieces are scattered all over India and fifty-two holy sites or pithasthanas are created thereby. This legend was mobilised for purposes of political indoctrination in the nineteenth century. The other myth concerns Uma, daughter of the Himalayas who successfully performed great penance to win Siva as her husband. Bhagavati as worshipped in Bengal is also Uma. The fact, as we shall see later, had interesting implications for the emotional affects associated with Durga Puja.
The myths concerning Kali worship derive from at least three different sources. According to the Devimahatmya, she is a minor emanation from the angry third eye of the goddess during her battle with the demon hosts of Sumbha and Nisumbha. With her lolling tongue, her role was to lick up every drop of blood of the demon general Raktavija, for otherwise each drop would produce countless clones. The Kalika Purana, on the other hand, describes her as Siva’s consort and so do several other Tantric texts.
The Little Magazine - The Rite Stuff - Tapan Raychaudhuri
And some other links:
Kali is usually depicted as naked, blood-thirsty, and wild-haired. Records of Kali's worship date back less than 2,000 years and it is widely assumed by scholars that she represents a survival of a Dravidian (pre-Aryan) goddess and is thought of as the great creatrix of the ancient Indian pantheon as she is well over 2000 years old. Kali is thought to be a pre-Aryan goddess, belonging to the civilization of the Indus Valley, because there is no evidence that Aryan people ever raised a female deity to the rank that she held in the Indus and currently maintains in Hinduism. Her dark skin evidences the fact that she predated the lighter-skinned Aryan invasion of the darker-skinned inhabitants of the Indian sub-continent. This conflict became the subject of many myths handed down about Kali's fierce passion in defending her people against the invaders. Kali's passion and fierceness are due both to her ties to the pre-Aryan Great Mother Goddess, as well as her place at Shiva's side as his consort, which gives her the power of the Shakti, or female energy. However the Aryan Invasion Theory of India's origins is currently in dispute amongst historians.
The Aryan invaders introduced into India's culture the patriarchal gods that they had brought with them, but various matriarchal tribes, such as the Shabara of Orissa , continues worshipping Kali. She was probably an aboriginal deity of vegetation and agriculture; but evidence that animal and human sacrifices were offered to her suggests that Kali became a fertility deity. Animal sacrifices are still made to her, notably in temples such as the one at Kalighat in Calcutta, where a goat is immolated in her honor every day. On her feast in the fall, goats and buffalos are the usual victims, along with certain types of vegetation. Although human sacrifices have been banned, there are occasional reports of alleged sacrifices to authorities from remote areas.
http://www.dollsofindia.com/kali.htm
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O Mother, even a dullard becomes a poet who meditates upon thee raimented with space, three-eyed, creatrix of the three worlds, whose waist is beautiful with a girdle made of numbers of dead men's arms, and who on the breast of a corpse, as thy couch in the cremation ground, enjoyest Mahakala - Karpuradistotra, VII (Woodroffe tr)
[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Kali's paramount place of worship is in the cremation ground, preferably at the dead of night, on a suitable day of the waning Moon. Here, her nature becomes clear and apparent. For an adept in the worship, the whole world is a cremation ground, and She, the true form of time, who by herself creates and destroys all, is personified as the pyre. There, after life, all mortals and their wishes, dreams and reflections come to their fruition, a pile of worthless ashes.[/SIZE]
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http://www.shivashakti.com/kali.htm
he blood-smeared image of Kali is after she killed the demon Raktavera. According to Hindu Mythology, Lord Brahma granted the boon to Raktavera that for every drop of his blood that fell on ground hundreds of demons like him would be produced. Thus the only way of slaying Raktavera was by not allowing even a drop of his blood to fall on the ground. Thereby Kali pierced him with a spear and drank all his blood as it gushed out. Kali once gave free rein to her blind lust for destruction. To stop the world from being destroyed Lord Shiva brought himself to the feet of Kali. On sensing her husband beneath her feet she stopped and thus the world was saved. She acquired her name Kali meaning ‘conqueror of time’ as she subdued her husband Lord Shiva by trampling over him. This way Devi the symbol of fertility conquered Shiva, the inexorable destroyer, who was equated with time.
http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/maa-kali-puja-bidrohi-barasat2
