Kali

The dark Mother, devourer of time

Black as time, garlanded with severed heads, her tongue out and her foot on the body of Shiva: Kali is the most terrifying image in Hinduism and, read rightly, the most tender. She is the Mother who devours death and destroys the one thing that truly binds us, the ego.

A quick reference entry. For the full account, follow the guides below.

Guides and journal

Who is Kali? Deities
To understand Kali is to learn to read that image the way her devotees do, because almost everything in it means the opposite of what it first appears to.
Kali: The Black Mother of Time Treatise
This is Kali, the first of the ten, and for one whole stream of the tradition the root from whom the other nine pour.
The Garland of Letters Treatise
Look again at the most famous terrible image in Hindu art: Kali, black, naked, her tongue out, and around her neck a garland of severed human heads.
The Wheel of Ages Treatise
Then the Treta , then the Dvapara , and finally the Kali Yuga , the age of strife, our own, when order has worn down to almost nothing.
Who is the Goddess? Deities
If there is Durga and Kali and Parvati and Lakshmi and Saraswati, and a thousand village goddesses besides, how many goddesses are there?
Does Hinduism have a Devil or a Satan? Journal
The age we live in is called the Kali Yuga , and it is named after a being called Kali, with a short vowel, a male personification of strife, quarrel, and vice who presides over the dark age.
The 64 Śākta Tantras Lineages
The two families, Kali and Sri Underneath the shifting lists sit two real and durable families, and the working division of the Śākta scriptures is between them.
The verse that was never about mantras Treatise
Some time in the 1570s, in Vārāṇasī, a poet writing in Avadhi set down four lines about the age he believed he was living in. The age was Kali, last and worst of the four.
The lock has an address Treatise
At the turn of the Kali age, the story goes, Śiva drove a pin into every mantra on earth and left them all inert, and the Śābara mantras alone he passed over.
The Four Yugas: Satya, Treta, Dvapara and Kali Essentials
As he sank into the water and rose again, they heard him say, out loud, to no one: "Excellent, excellent is the Kali age." He went under again.
When will Kalki come, and what will he look like? Journal
Kalki, the tenth and last of the ten great descents of Vishnu, the Dashavatara , comes at the close of our present age, the Kali Yuga.