Culture

Kali, The Myth of Kali

How to Paint a Picture of Hers?

Which image to paint and picture
And draw,
That of Shyama Kali
Or of Samshan Kali?

On the one hand
The music of Shyama Kali enchanting us
While on the other the lila of Samshan Kali
Showing the theology of Creation.

Why is She Shyama Kali,
Blue-complexioned Kali,
Why is She again Samshan Kali,
Pitch-dark and Dreadful?
(Two Faces of Kali, Shyama Kali and Shamshan Kali)

Kali The Dark Divine, how to know Her, the Myth of Creation? Why is Kali dark? It is beyond explanation. If the world can be dark, the things of creation rooted in darkness, what to say it about?

Kali
The Dark Goddes,
How the cult of Hers,
What the myth behind Her Dark Complexion?
How to say about the Doomsday,
What more about death and destruction
And  the  Night of Creation too side by side?
(Kali The Dark Divine)

When She is shown as a Red Vermillion Fresco, something lessens it the fearsome element and She appears to be motherly, blissful and benign.

Somewhere the vermillion fresco
With the eyes made from silver
And painted
And the tongue too silvery
Hanging out,
Changing the image of Hers
From dreadful to compassionate one.
(The Red Fresco of Kali)

Thoughts on Kali tell of random reflections on Kali imagery. Why the image is dreadful and fearsome? The answer is, if the devilish forces, satanic powers go on wreaking havoc, who to punish them? Something gets incarnation in order to annihilate. 

The Dark Divine,
How to paint Her,
Make of image of Hers?

Kali,
Mahakali,
Kaal-rupa, Kalyani,
Karal-vikral Kali,
The Dreadful Kali, Fierce One?

Is She some Dormant Force of Nature,
Creation,
The Latent Power?
(Thoughts On Kali)

An Image of Kali can also be called A Painting or An Idol-making. Kali images and pictures are an obsession with and we often hanker after the images. What She is and how the image?

Kali the Dark Goddess
With conventional weapons
Into the four hands
And the hair waist long,
The crescent as the bindi
On the forehead
Telling of Her trinetra
And with the crown on Her head
Wearing a garland of human heads
Cut and wreathed into
And the jackal with Her,
The snake rounded around
And the red tongue out of the lips
As if held in shame
As for trampling Shiva
Under Her feet.
(An Image of Kali)

Kali, since when have we been worshipping Kali? Since when? How old is our worship? How had it been our reverence? What it in the ritual? Who worshipped Kali in the past? How were the worshippers of it? Kali, what is Kali? What is it in Kali? What it the myth of Kali? How had it been our belief? 

Where to move to in search of Her Iconography? How had it been our historical, ancient, olden images? Kali, Mahakali, how did we worship Her? How did the folks? How do the idol-makers make the idols made from clay? How do they paint it? How do the artisans make the idols of metals? How do the sculptors make the statues made from stone?

How to be a priest of Kali? How to get Her favour, win Her blessings? How the hymns, mantras of Hers? How to invoke Her? Is She a representation of, Dark is beautiful? What it is dark, let it be, what it is unknowable, let it be.
What is Kali? Who to tell me? How to know Her? Why the statue is so? Why the image so? We do not understand the myth of the Supernatural Force, the Nocturnal Power. 

How to be a sadhaka of Kali? How to worship Her? How the cult and the rituals? How the texts tantrical hidden from common access? How the tests of the Divine? Is She a dreadful form? Is She Night-like? Is She Creation-like? How had it been the Night of Creation? How the Doomsday imagery?

Is Kali not an Aryan Goddess? Is She really a non-Aryan Goddess?  Is Her origin aboriginal? How has She been inducted into the Aryan pantheon?

Is Kali a Dark Goddess? How the colour of Her? Is She Blue-coloured Shyama Kali? Or, Dark Kali? Or, Red-vermillion Kali? How to weave the myths of Creation?

Did the dacoits, thugs and thieves worship Her in the past? Did they loot and rob of belongings after worshipping Kali? Is She Kaal-rupa or Kalyani? How to say it?

How did the tantrics worship Kali? How do the tantrics worship Kali? Do they invoke the Nocturnal Force? It is said that something tests the sadhaka and his sadhna, some unseen supernatural force coming and passing by suddenly.
Kali, Mahakali, Kalratri, Maharatri, Moharatri, how to make an image of Hers?  How have they been the artisans and artists, painters and sculptors?

How had it been the mud temples of ours? How had it been the vermillion? How the paints and colous we used? Where did we write on the psalms and hymns? Perhaps on the palm leaves. And we carried on with oral literature.
Shyama Kali, the image of Hers we balance with what it is dark and fearsome.  What it is dark is also mythical and mystical, supernatural and nocturnal. But some of the superstitious things we cannot approve of.

Shyama Kali,
Why is She Shyam,
Blue-complexioned,
So Compassionate and Lenient?
(Shyama Kali)

The Night of Sadhna cannot be so easy to feel about as one may have to take to several ordeals and tests and the crematorium ground which we think about being inauspicious is not so, but the most sacred one as here things can be realized it hereon.

Shamshan Kali,
The Kali of Crematorium Grounds,
Fearsome and Dark,
The Image Dark and Fearsome.
(Shamshan Kali)

How to convert, channelize the things felt during sadhna need to be transcended and used in a right perspective! The mythical and the supernatural have always stricken us with awe, wonder and suspense and so is the the element of mystery, miracle and morality.

What is Kali,
How to say it,
Why the Dark Divine
Awesome and Strange?
(Kali Myth)

The Dark Black One Leg of Kali may be a replica, an art-representation. All the lines and the titles have mixed herewith to form a poetic imagery. 

The Dark Black One Leg of Kali
With the nails painted white,
The Dark Black Leg.
(A Replica, An Art-symbol)

Here Kali painting has been taken into consideration, Kali imagery, Kali art and symbols. If the heart and mind are not pure, how to approach Her? How to seek for Her blessing if the heart is not pure? If our activities are sinful? If sin, lust, greed, jealousy and desire take over us?

The clay head of Kali
Painted black
But the white dots
Marking Her clear eyes
And the third eye
Marked upon the forehead
And the red tongue
Hanging out
And the red line demarcating
The eyeball and the third eye
Spotted black upon the white round
And the teeth white,
The white dots also lining
Her upper eyelashes
As for beautification.
(A Clay Model)

06-Nov-2021

More by :  Bijay Kant Dubey

Top | Culture

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