Who is the goddess KALI of India

One of the most important and at the same time most forgotten religions by Westerners is the Hindu, being beliefs with centuries of travel in which some of the most interesting myths in history appear. To talk about one of the main goddesses of this pantheon, and also get to know the main gods related to her, in this lesson from a Teacher we are going to talk about who is goddess Kali.

Index

1. Goddess Kali: The Hindu Goddess of Life and Death
2. What is the power of the goddess Kali?
3. Who is the god Shiva? The husband of the goddess Kali
4. Who is the Hindu Mother Goddess? Durga, the mother of the goddess Kali
5. What is the goddess of love in India? Parvati

Kali is one of the main gods of Hindu beliefs. She is the deity that represents death and destruction, which is why she is one of the most violent beings in the entire Hindu religion.

Her name derives from the Indian word for black, that she does not stop having the meaning of darkness or movement towards death, being a name closely linked to the idea that she is a goddess of death and destruction.

Origin of the goddess Kali

It is said that the origin of lThe goddess Kali took place in the brow of the deity Durga, regarded as the mother goddess of the gods of India.

Her birth took place while Durga battled evil forces and, as soon as she was born, KAli she had to fight demons next to her mother. Kali's attack on the forces of evil could only be stopped by the god Shiva who managed to stop the goddess of destruction, born the relationship between two gods that over the years would end getting married.

How is the goddess Kali

To recognize Kali among all the gods of India, we must talk about her appearance, being very defining because of how different we are from what we are used to in the gods.

Kali she has blood-colored eyes, this liquid being the one that surrounds her body as if she were constantly in struggle. Has four arms, two of them make the symbol of not being afraid, in another he carries a sword prepared for the fight and in the other a demon head to symbolize the fight against them.

Her role as gods of destruction makes Kali have many war-related powers And, to understand who the goddess Kali is, we must list all these abilities, to understand the enormous power that Kali has within the Hindu pantheon.

The Kali's powers are the following:

• Kali represents the cycle of life, being at the same time the end, death and destruction, but also life and birth. Kali considers destruction to be love, because without it there is no rebirth and therefore love cannot flourish again.
• Kali she represents shakti, known as female power, that does not stop being the counterpart of the masculine power that her husband Shiva represents, and therefore being a goddess representative of femininity.
• She is the devourer of time possessing three eyes that see three different times, being the past, present and future. Thanks to this, she can be in all three times at the same time and intervene so that nothing can happen, supporting the universe with it.
• The sword of Kali is capable of destroying any false consciousness, purifying everyone who deserves it, although her idea of ​​purifying is usually linked to that of killing the corrupt person.
• She is in charge of achieve balance in the world, but for this she must kill and destroy in such a way that everything ends up being balanced. The idea is that everything in the world must be balanced, there being neither too much nor little of everything, and therefore it is key that Kali can destroy and create depending on the needs of the world.
• She is infinite, being in all spaces and times at the same time, she says that she is therefore naked, since no clothing of her can cover something infinite. Like her husband, her Shiva, the goddess Kali exists in all places, since both are the cosmos itself, her word and action being the law in the universe itself.

To know Kali we must also talk about the gods that surround her, being figures without which we cannot understand the goddess due to the enormous influence that the Hindu gods have on each other. The god most closely related to Kali is her husband, Shiva, being possibly the best known deity of the entire pantheon of India.

Shiva is one of the most relevant gods of Hinduism, she being able to create and destroy what she wants, and in charge of controlling and dominating the cosmos.

Shiva is the god who she represents the destruction and transformation of everything and all, similar in these attributes to his wife Kali. He is known by various nicknames such as the lord of destruction, god of beasts, master of chaos, protector of nature, who possesses knowledge or god of mystery. Her name means the benevolent, being contrary to the idea of ​​danger of his wife, although they really have a quite similar role.

Shiva has three forms, being the others those of Brahma and Visnu: the first the creator, the second the curator and Shiva occupying the role of the destroyer.

In a similar way to his wife, the idea is that Shiva destroys the world so that his other counterparts can recreate it, going very close to the ideas of Hindu beliefs that everyone has to die to resurface.

In general we can see that the role of Shiva is very similar to that of his wife, although the idea of ​​a warrior destroyer, with elements such as swords, is more related to Kali than to Shiva. They tend to think that Shiva is so powerful that he does not even have to have weapons for destruction, being able to change the world itself with a single thought and therefore she is the greatest enemy of the demons of the Indian beliefs.

To continue talking about the gods related to Kali, which allow us to understand more depth everything related to it, we must talk about the Mother Goddess of Hindu beliefs, being this the goddess Durga.

Durga is known as the unapproachable or invincible, demonstrating with this nickname the enormous power that she has within Hindu beliefs. She is the mother of God, goddess of preservation, power, energy, strength and protection. Her role in the pantheon really does not stop being that of one of the faces that the superior goddess Devi has, so we can say that Durga is one of the main goddesses.

Like Kali, it is explained in Hindu myths that Durga is a warrior goddess who faces demons and other forces evil to protect the world and bring peace, although her reasoning is similar to that of her daughter Kali, since she destroys everything and everyone for the greater good, destroying so that something new can emerge from the ashes.

Durga's enormous power is told in myths, since according to one of these legends the goddess was the fruit of the union of the powers of the gods known as Devas, who after losing the war against the Asuras decided to unite all the powers of her to create a goddess that could defeat the demons, arising from this Durga.

After defeating the Asuras, the goddess Durga kept up her fight against all evil forces, making be born deities in their confrontations against them, the best example being the already commented birth of Kali.

Like most gods of Hindu beliefs, the goddess Kali also has counterparts. Since Hindu mythology considers that Each god and goddess has different faces.

Out of all Kali's counterparts, one of the most important is that of Parvati, a deity that encompasses many themes in Hindu beliefs, such as love. And to learn more about who the goddess Kali is, we must talk about this important counterpart.

Parvati in Hindu mythology is the goddess of love, fertility, beauty, marriage and children. As we can see, although she is a counterpart of Kali, she could not be more different, these situations being common in the beliefs of the Hindus.

Like Kali, the goddess Parvati represents the cycle of life, of how everything changes, the old disappearing so that the new can be born. Although in the case of this goddess she goes more unity to birth, due to her relationship with children and fertility, than to death as if she was more representative of her Kali.

Like Kali, the goddess Parvati is Shiva's wife, although in most texts and representations it is more common for Parvati to represent the female figure of Shiva instead of Kali. It is said that Parvati and Shiva are the two parts of the universe, with different power, but both being key to the cosmos.

Usually Kali and Parvati are said to be two sides of the same coin: Kali is the evil and destructive part as goddess of destruction; and Parvati is the kind and good part as goddess of love.

If you want to read more articles similar to Who is the goddess Kali, we recommend that you enter our category of History.

• Flood, G. D. (1999). Hinduism. AKAL editions.
• Correa, F. L. (2015). Hinduism: historical and conceptual considerations. Intus-Legere History, 6(1), 45-62.
• de Mora, J. M., & Jarocka, M. L. (2003). The concept of Divinity in Hinduism (Vol. 28). UNAM.