Iconography of Goddess Kali by Talonabraxas

Iconography of Goddess Kali

Maa Kali wears a garland of skulls and a skirt of dismembered arms because the ego arises out of identification with the body. In truth we are beings of spirit and not flesh. So liberation can only proceed when our attachment to the body ends. Thus the garland and skirt are trophies worn by her to symbolize having liberated her children from attachment to the limited body.

She holds a sword and a freshly severed head dripping blood. As the story goes, this represents a great battle in which she destroyed the demon Raktabija. Her black skin represents the womb of the quantum manifest from which all of creation arises and into which all of creation will eventually dissolve.

She is depicted as standing on Shiva who lays beneath her with white skin (in contrast to her black or sometimes dark blue skin). He has a blissful detached look. Shiva represents pure formless awareness sat-chit-ananda (being-consciousness-bliss) while she represents “form” eternally supported by the substratum of pure awareness.

By not understanding the story behind Mother Kali it is easy to misinterpret her iconography. In the same way one could say that Christianity is a religion of death, destruction and cannibalism in which the practitioners drink the blood of Jesus and eat his flesh. Of course, we know this is not the proper understanding of the communion ritual.