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Shiva is strongly associated with Kali. She is inextricably connected to Shiva since her name, Kala, is the feminine version of the Hindu god's namesake. She is regarded as Shiva's wife and as his shakti (power).
She is strongly associated with him throughout the Puranas, but whenever she displays herself beside Shiva, she assumes the opposite demeanor of Parvati. While Kali constantly provokes and promotes Shiva, Parvati soothes him and controls his penchant for devastation. Kali is never subdued by Siva; Siva must pacify Kali.
While Kali developed a concurrent connection with Tantra, she was always seamlessly integrated into the Vedic, or conventional, Hindu heritage. Tantric doctrines, that coexist the Vedic legacy and could be regarded as being more accurately maintaining Kali's untamed indigenous origins than the Vedic, are a compendium of old mystic tales and mythology.
She is perceived from this viewpoint as residing outside the boundaries of space-time and as having no intrinsic permanency; she appeared first before the universe was established and will survive when the cosmos is annihilated.
Kali is not constrained by the physical world's concepts of color, light, or good and evil. She is a depiction of Mother Nature, who is foundational, innovative, replenishing, and engulfing at distinct periods, but who is eventually loving and kind hearted. Many thousands of Hindus revere and love her in this form, and she is recognized as Kali Ma, or the Heavenly Mother in this facet of compassion.
With the understanding that one can't live sans the other, followers of Tantric yoga are compelled by Kali's twofold nature to concurrently address both the splendor of life and the reality of death.
Even ardent Hindus were apprehensive of Kali's vengeance partly due to her frightening characteristics and tendency for acting unpredictability, especially to the individuals who attempted to control her. Kali, nevertheless, received a transformation from the Tantric Bengali artists in northwest India.
She was never again portrayed as a threatening red-eyed ghoul and began to be depicted as sensual, maternal, youthful, and stunning, with a welcoming smile, exquisite ornaments, and a pleasing blue tone. Two of her hands of the right were now performing comforting gestures, the mudras of bravery and compassion, while she proceeded to openly carry weaponry and dismembered heads.
Her visage today reflects her contradictory temperament. Whenever Kali is being shown slaughtering, she beams sweetly. Her protruding red tongue indicates both her necessity lifeblood and modesty. Her unkempt hair hints at the possibility of unrestrained thirst for blood or, alternatively, the philosophical enigma of mortality that pervades life.
Her three eyes symbolize omniscient characteristics, and her ample bosom are a metaphor of both desire and compassion. Her nakedness speaks both innocence and sensuality. Her belt of chopped arms and garland of decapitated heads symbolize liberation from the constraints of karma and collected acts even while representing her homicidal rage.
Even her posture carries a double connotation. Her right foot forward attitude promotes the renowned right-handed path of Tantra, while trying to downplay the infamous left-handed pathway taken by "depraved" Tantric workers like the Aghori.
Her left hands hold weaponry, such as a blood-stained blade or trishul, a freshly decapitated head, and a skull bowl to store the blood, depending on the number of arms she is portrayed as having. Her right hands are usually characterized by good gestures. Even these, nevertheless, have a greater purpose as emblems.
The head symbolizes the human vanity that must be chopped in order to break away from the cycle of existence and death. The sword indicates high wisdom. As a potential therapy, New Age Tantric practitioners adopt her explicitly sexual appearances, while Hollywood exploits her as a convenient symbol of wickedness. But Kali, the genuine Kali, will reject all attempts to tame and subjugate her like she has maintained since the beginning of time.
Goddess Kali’s statue must be installed on the front wall of the residence for great fortune. The front façade of the residence can be embellished with a sculpture of Goddess Kali to safeguard it from evil eyesight. There is no entity in the entirety of the universe as we know it to match up to Goddess Kali. Each of Her attributes are singular - bloodlust, ferocious invincibility, and ethereal beauty - and when put together in Her image, it concocts an overpowering deity.
In the Exotic India collection of this Oriental devi sculpted in exquisite brass, She is seen vanquishing adharmees, weilding a number of earthly and heavenly weapons in superlative fierceness, and stepping over Lord Shiv in all her glorious nakedness. Exotic India's brass statues of Goddess Kali comes in a colourful variety of monotone finish and varying degrees of lustre.
Kali is the Goddess of time, change, darkness, death, and destruction. She destroys only to recreate, and what she destroys are sin, ignorance, and decay. She is also a symbol of Mother Nature as she is believed to be timeless and formless, representing the creation of life and the universe as well. Kali's black color symbolizes her transcendence of all forms.
Kali represents the most primal desire, which is to love all and be one with all, to find the perfect, pure and eternal bliss, which is the presence of Shiva, the Eternal Being and Consciousness hidden in all life. Kali embodies shakti – feminine energy, creativity, and fertility – and is an incarnation of Parvati, wife of the great Hindu god Shiva.
Kali Puja is celebrated on the new moon day of the Hindu month Kartik. It is celebrated on the same day as Diwali when others worship the goddess Lakshmi. In Tantra Shastra of Hindu, it is mentioned that ‘Maa Kali Upasana’ has to be done always on Tuesday night after 10 pm.
There are other parameters also in Indian Panchangs: it should be combinations of Tuesday Dark Night mean Mangal Vaar Amavasya; Krishna paksha Ashtami with Mangalvaar mean dark day 8th day with Tuesday night, and many scholars say Navaratris of both ‘Ashwin and Chaitra Month’ is best to worship Maa Kali. The ‘Shabar Mantra’ book has mentioned ‘Saturday night’ as the day of worship.
Goddess Kali is revered as the external energy of the Supreme Lord Vishnu and is responsible for protecting the conditioned souls of the material world from any mishaps. Her most famous iconographic image shows her four arms carrying different weapons, her eyes filled with rage, her hair disheveled, and her tongue lolling.
The tongue protruding out from her mouth represents her hunger for killing the demons who do not follow the Dharma and are rebellious against the will of the Supreme Lord.
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