18 The Kali Yantra The Changing Iconography of Goddess Dakshina Kali in Bengal | Madhu KhannaArt, Icon and Architecture in South Asia Essays in Honour of Dr. Devangana Desai nen sg Anila Verghese | Anna L. DallapiccolaThe Kali Yantra The Changing Iconography of Goddess Dakshina Kali in Bengal This paper examines the changing dynamics of the iconographic representation of goddess Dakshina Kali, She is one of the most popular and awe-inspiring deities who figure prominently in the cultural life of Bengal and eastern India, The Tantric hymns that describe her iconic representations show her as a fierce and destructive embodiment of the cosmic feminine. There is repeated stress on her uncanny visual attributes such as her fierce-looking appearance, her fanged mouth with a blood-stained lolling tongue, and severed limbs and skulls that form her adornments. The goddess possesses a female body but the features that define her stance and posture, such as trampling the supine body of Shiva, evoke destruction.’ In the she was a tribal early years of her pre-histor and folk deity, who made her official debut in the celebrated text the Durgasaptashati (600 ce). A goddess named Kali in the early stages of her development was part of the group of female divinities worshipped by rural Bengalis. These village goddesses, Grama- devatas, were represented with amorphous and crude stone images smeared in vermition and found in spots called Kali Tala or thans. In this form, she is part of the rural collective religious beliefs, where goddesses were propitiated by animal sacrifices. In the next stage, it is recorded that there is an early image of Kali in the village of Govindpur, in the jungle, and several aboriginal tribes, fishermen and hunters offered worship there. In the fifteenth century,this temple was destroyed and the image was shifted to Bhawanipur in south Calcutta, where small temple was built. By the eighteenth century, the image began to gain prominence, and the Sabarna Choudhury zamindars acquired the patronage of the site at Kalighat and later developed it. The earlier Guhya Kali image of the goddess, who was worshipped in secrecy, emerged as a patron goddess of the elite upper classes. It was in the sixteenth century that the image of Daksina Kali, known to us, was reinvented by Krishnananda Agamavagisha. She became prominent when her worship was revalorized by Krishna Chandra Ray (1710-82) of Nabadwip in the eighteenth century. Her worship entered the public domain at Calcutta at the famous temple in Kalighat? ‘The evolution of Kali’s ‘Protima’, her anthropomorphic ‘iconic’ human figure, from an amorphous image symbolizing a fierce deity to a fully domesticated representation, is ‘well known. What is less known is the transition of her iconography from her iconie human form to the geometrical abstraction of her ‘aniconie’ form, the Kali Yantra. This is not surprising, as Hindu deities are primarily known by the astounding profusion of their ‘classical’ anthropomorphic images with multiple heads and arms, or through the ‘monumental temples embellished with lilting sculptures, of gods, goddesses, human and divine figures exuding an idealization in art expression that captures the proliferating power of nature. The sublime characterization of the feminine principle began to be represented in multiple genres of creative expression from the pre-Mauryan period. While the veneration of the anthropomorphic figures has continued as a dominant expression in the arts and ritual worship, another thread, which was revalorized by the Hindu Tantric ritual tradition, introduced, to the large repertory of conventional figurative The Kal 251 art, the use of a wide variety of aniconic symbols and sacred geometric diagrams, technically referred to as yantras. The Tantric yantra is one of the most widely used symbols ‘Tantric ritual. Yet, paradoxically, recent attempts to describe the iconic representation of the Goddess Kali have rarely moved beyond pre-existing notions of her fierce form ‘emphasizing the exoticization of her awe- inspiring erotic and macabre persona either as a ‘bloodthirsty’ warrior goddess or as the erotic consort of Shiva, There has been a lack of scholarly attention paid to her non- anthropomorphic symbols of worship. Lithographic prints of the Kali Yantra were found in old Sanskrit books published in the late nineteenth century such as the Tantrasara’ of Agamavagisha and the Shaktapramoda. Although the Kali Yantra has been identified in exhibition catalogues, a detailed study of the iconography of this yantra has not received the attention of scholars. J.N. Banerjea* and A, Gopinatha Rao,’ two reputed scholars of Hindu iconography, refer to the use of aniconie symbols, such as svayambhumurtis, or self= born images, e.g. stone Shalagramas and Fig, 18.1. Kal Yonra tom Rajasthan, ate 1700s. |Banalingas, worshipped in India, b the Kali Yantra, A painted image of the Kali Yantra from Rajasthan, dated e. 1800, was first discovered and published by the collector and museum. Mukherjee, in his book Tantra Art (Fig. 18.1). The yantra is now in the collection of the National Museum, New Delhi (Ace No. 82.481), Another image of a similar type from Nepal, dated c. 1761, was published by Khanna (Fig. 18.2).7 A three-dimensional Meru form of Kali Yantra is in the collection of not to New South Wales Museum, Sydney (Fig. 18.3). By far one of the most spectacular examples is a late-nineteenth century work from a private collection, exhibited at the famous Devi-Exhibition at the Arthur M. 1998, published by Dehejia (Fig. 18.6), in the catalogue. Gudrun Bihnemann’s recent anthology Yantra and Mandalas in Hindu Traditions discusses the concept in its Vedic and Tantric contexts but omits any discussion on the Kali Yantra, Kinsley gives a generic overview of this yantra."® The importance xiven to the yantra, along with Kali’s Fig, 182. Kal Yntratiom Nepal, 1761. | Fig 18.3. Fa Yantra bronze, 1800s | anthropomorphic image, marks an important phase in the re-conceptualization of the K: theology in post-eighteenth century Bengal. ‘The meaning, significance and goddess theology of the Kali Yantra explores the taneous juxtaposition of different registers and innovative genres of expre: in Kalis changing and composite iconography that added a cognitive dimension to her overtly fierce characterization. ions COMPOSITION AND AESTHETIC ELE! ‘The yantra occupies a significant place in Tantric sadhana. There are specific yantras that are assigned for different sadhanas. A xyantra may be inseribed on metal plate, silver, gold or copper, and set up for worship on an altar in a temple or in a private shrine. It is stated in the Kulanarva Tantra: “As body to the soul and oil isto the lamp, a yantra the deity." yantra for puja, in several ways, may substitute an image of the deity, although in temple and private worship both the figure of the deity and the yantra a adored conjointly. While a murti is worshipped as a whole, the yantra worshipped in each of its individual parts. ‘The puja yantra is primarily a concentric configuration composed of primal geometrical forms and symbols, such as biomorphieFig. 184. Yon'-Mudr | compositions, concentric cosmograms, consisting of nuclear motifs, such as the bindu, a dimensionless point, triangle (trikona), hexagon, circle, square, and configurations of interlocked triangles. Most Devi yantras are centered around the bindu, enclosed by the primal inverted triangle (or triangles), the symbol of the creative genetrix of the feminine. Several configurations of linear shapes are generally enclosed by an eight-or sixteen-petalled lotus. The diagram so formed is set within T-shaped portals with a square enclosure. Yantras are governed by a well- defined symbolic syntax."® A yantra is seen as an abstract translation of the deity-image (para-rupa). Each yantra further is inextricably associated with mantras, sonic sacred syllables (with mystic combinations of Sanskrit letters), that embody the subtle form of the deity. The yantra-mantra complex complements one another. The third aspect of yantra which is significant is that the yantra reveals a universe-pattern or is an all- The Kal 253 inclusive contained image of the ontological principles of the cosmos, presided over by the principal goddess and her veiling goddesses (avarana-devatas). Finally, her yantra mirrors her cosmos, with well-defined categories, which are identified by several linear points of the diagram. These points act as seats (pithas) of the attendant deities (parivara-devatas) of the chief deity and her particular personifications. Although no consistent theory of classification of Devi yantras can be found in one particular text, there are a number of authoritative Sanskrit sources, completed possibly after the fifteenth century, that Fig, 18.5. Yon! AsanaFig. 18.6. Kali Yantra, Varanas,eatly 18005. | discuss the form and symbolic context of the worship of the Kali Yantra, The Kali Tantra," Tantrasara's of Agamavagisha, Karpuradistotra’s (verse 18) and its commentary by Vimalananda, the Kali- upanisad,'® and the Kalirahasya"” are some of the major texts where the yantra is discussed. ‘There are two versions of the Kali Yantra, The most widely known version is composed of five concentric triangles, placed one into the other, centred around the bindu to form a fifteen-angled figure, enclosed by an eight petalled lotus, set within a square enclosure opening out in four directions. A verse on the mode of inseribing this yantra states: Having first traced a triangle, let the Master of Mantras make another triangle then three {concentric} triangles encircling the previous two}, which are the most excellent ones. Then having.traced Je with an eight-petalled lotus, he should encircle it with a square enclosure (bhupura), according to the procedure.'* ‘The second version with a hexagon is described thus: [First inscribe an] inverted triangle and [another with an apex upward} to form a hexagon. Encirele (garbhikrta) the hexagon with three inverted triangles to the ni ingled figure (navatmakam). Trace three circles with an ight-petalled lotus (around it} and ador the circles of yonis (yonimandala) with a square enclosure." A set of five triangles forms the central ‘motif of the first type of the Kali Yantra. The archetypal triangle is the immemorial symbol of the cosmic feminine as a source of life. It i regarded as a symbol of the female vulva associated with ancient fertility cults. In many parts of India, megalithic domes and dolmens are built in the shape of female wombs, where the entrance resembles the triangular yoni- shaped passage. Archaeologists have drawn our attention to a pre-historic Palaeolithic site, dated 1300 vce, at Baghor, in Madhya Pradesh, central India. At a tribal cult site of Dravidian hunter-gatherers, there is an altar with an upright triangular stone with concentric lines marked with red ochre.*° This is known locally as the shrine of Kalika Ma (Mother Kali). In the Tantric Shakta tradition, the symbol of the triangle as a cosmic womb reappears in different guises. The triangle invariably forms the central motif of most, if not all, the Devi Yantras that are used for ritual worship. The symbol was assimilated in the sacred landseape of goddess pithasthans. ‘Thus, three hill-tops with shrines of goddesses in Vindhyachala and in Kamakhya are positioned to resemble a triangular form. The famous Kamakhya temple at Guwahati in Assam is referred to as trikona-kshetra. The The Kel 255 ritual finger pose of the yoni-mudra (Fig. 18.4) is structurally shaped as a yonic triangle. The Todala Tantra describes the special triangular-shaped yoga posture called the yoni-asana (Fig, 18.5). These affinities show the extraordinary breadth and symbolic value of the Shakta appropriation of this ancient symbol. An impressive image of the Kali Yantra, unique for its seale (66 x 66.5 em), based on the verse quoted above (Fig, 18.6),** shows the precise location of the attendant deities (parivara-devatas) presiding over the different parts of the yantra. According to the inscription, this late version is painted by Batuk Prasad at Kashi (Varanasi) in the early part of the nineteenth century. This is a fine ‘example of the integration of figurative icons. in the geometric configuration of the Kali Yantra. The painted icons positioned on various parts of the diagram meticulously follow the deity-code explained fully in the Tantrasara* of Agamavagisha, which describes each step of the esoteric worship of the Kali Yantra. The yantra opens out from the inverted triangle in the centre. The hollow, grotto or cave-like yoni triangles accentuate the awe and mystery of the finely painted figure of Kali in the cremation ground, Goddess Kali is depicted on the prostrate body of Shiva against the luminous blue background of the clear sky in the cremation ground. Kali’s attendants are positioned concentrically around the bindu, at the centre in the three points of the five triangles encircling the bindu, a locus reserved for Kali alone. These deities are grouped in the following ways: 1) Kali, 2) Kapalini, 3) Kulla in the first triangle; 4) Kurukulla, 5) Virodhani, and 6) Vipracitta in the second triangle; 7) Ugra, 8) Ugraprabha and 9) Dipta in the third triangle; 10) Nila, 11) Ghana, and 12) Balaka in the fourth triangle; and finally 13) Matra, 14) Mudra and 15) Mita in the outermost, fifth triangle. Each of thein South Asia 256| encircling lotus petals is pre second group of goddesses, the Matrik ‘Shaktis of Kali. They are invoked along with their male consorts whose icons are painted on the tips of the white lotus petals, They are (clockwise from bottom): i) the four-armed Brahmi with Asitanga Bhairava; i) four-armed, blue-complexioned Narayani with Ruru Bhairava; iti) fair-complexioned Maheshvari with Chanda Bhairava; iv) grizzly haired Chamunda standing on a corpse with Krodha Bhairava; v) red-complexioned Kaumari with Unmatta Bhairava; vi) Aparajita with Kapali Bhairava; vii) boar-headed Varahi with Bhishna Bhairava; and vii) lion-headed Narasimhi with her consort Sambara Bhairava. ‘The guardian deities are positioned on the eight regents of space; and the weapons of Kali outside the square, An unusual feature of the painting is the depiction of the patron seated on a palanquin entering the right gate of the yantra, As we will see below, these hierophanies have multiple significance. They personify the diverse categories (tattas) of the theological cosmos of the Shaktas in Bengal and the time eyeles of creation. esided over by the Fig, 18.7, Kali Yantra, marked with position of deities ‘presiding over the diagram, KALI'S NITYAS. Kali’s primary association is with Time and its infinite cycles, from the smallest unit of time asa truti Ys of a blink, a unit that is multiplied to the order of an acon. Thi itself with diverse layer epochal time of the great aeons or the eternally recurring cosmic ages, and the calendrical time that determines the days, weeks, months and seasons. Kali represents all the eycles of Time. This is aptly demonstrated in the etymology of her name (Kalyati iti Kali).25 In our human terms, she represents Amavasya, the dark night of the moon and all the phases of the waning moon, Like the goddess Tripurasundari, who is associated with the fifteen phases of the waxing moon, Kali mirrors the opposite eyele of the fifteen phases of waning moon, Each phase of the moon is presided over by one of the fifteen goddesses who are mentioned above. In thi they are known as the notion associates s of time, the cosmic or role as Eternal Ones (Nitya: appear with the waxing and waning of the moon cycle. In contrast to the Nitya Shaktis of the goddess Tripurasundari Lalita, who are bright and positive manifestations, the Kali Nityas are dark, dismal and forbidding, ‘The Shaktisangama Tantra®® gives a vivid description of the iconography of the fifteen Nitya Shaktis of features of these goddesses, who are all who disappear and ome distinctive ferocious in appearance and are either seated nding with their objects and attributes in their hands, may be summarized as follows: (1) Kali: a sword and a knife; (2) Kapalinis a sword, a trident, and the finger pose of dispelling fear and bestowing grace; (3) Kulla: a book, rosary, varada and abhaya-mudras; (4) Kurukulla: a skull cup, a sword, a shield and a knife; (5) Virodhini: a trident, a serpent ‘noose’, a bell and kettle drum; (6) Viprachitta: a sword, a severed head, a skull-cup and a trident; (7) Ugra: a sword, a night lotus, a skullcup and a knife; (8) Ugraprabha: a sword, a severed head, a skull-cup and a knife: (9) Dipta: a sword, a severed head, the abhaya and varada-mudras. (10) Nila (= Mahanila a scimitar, a lotus, the varada and abhaya-mudras;27 (11) Ghana: a sword, a shield, a spear and a club; (12) Balaka: a sword, a severed head, a skull cup, and raised under finger, (13) Matra: a skull-cup, a knife, a sword and a severed head; (14) Mudra: a skull cup, a knife, a shield, a sword; and (15) Mita: a sword, a severed head, the abhaya and varada- mudras. All the fifteen Nityas are fierce emanations and bestow siddhis. ‘THE ONTOLOGY OF KALI YANTRA. ‘The symbolism of the Kali Yantra is fully explained in the Kalikopanishad and by Vimalananda, the commentator of the celebrated hymn, the Karpuradistotra (date: saka year 1837); in his commentary, Tika, he has summarized the symbolism of Kali's yantra, Vimalananda was the grandson of Kaliprasada, son of one Raghumani. His patron's name under whose motivation he wrote the Tika was Satish Chandra Raya. In the commentary to verse 18, he quotes several authoritative sources to explain the Kali Yantra, such as the Kali Tantra, and Kali Shruti (Kali-upanishad).*® The meta principles of its symbols are based on the Vedantized interpretation of Samkhya that had permeated the writings of later commentators and scholars in Bengal, who based their commentries on the Vedantized interpretation of the Samkhya principle of the all-pervasive Prakriti. ‘The ontology of the Kali Yantra discussed above is based on Samkhya categories; the Samkhya philosophy of Kapila was founded as a dualistic system rooted in the notion of two absolute principles: Purusha, le, and Prakriti, the dynamic le for material nature. This the stat female respor Tre Kali vanta 287 ancient dualistic view was reworked by the champions of Samkara Vedanta, who were the adversaries of materialism inherent in Samkhya philosophy. There was a conscious attempt to reframe the original dualist concept of reality in the garb of Vedanta, by such authors as Vijnanabhikshu, the commentator of Samkhya Sutra, and Gaudapada, the commentator of Samkhya Karika. In their interpretations, the dualistic doctrine of Samkhya gets seamlessly assimilated into the unitive concept of Shakti and her consort, who are referred to as Prakriti and Purusha. In her yantra form, the Adya-Shakti Kali appears in the central dot, or bindu, as a conscious source or womb of the world.2? She is the energy aspect of material nature, whose inexhaustible kinetic quality is possessed by and unites with the Absolute for the sake of creation. Her primordial explosive will to create is contrasted with Purusha, the male principal, not as matter to ‘spirit’ but as male to female. The bindu in the centre of Kali Yantras shows her non-separability and non- difference from the Supreme Male Principal, Shiva, It is a symbol of the non-manifested state of creation As the Supreme Generative Energy, Kali is the material, instrumental and efficient cause of material nature, and in this aspeet she is represented as Prakriti, symbolized by the lotus-form of the yantra, Her creative urge impels material force (Prakriti) to diversify into an infinite number of grosser forms. The eight petals of the lotus denote the eight elements of Prakriti - earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind (manas), intellect (buddhi), ego- sense (ahamkara) ~ of which the phenomenal world is held to be composed and which are none other than herself. Kali’s creative function as Prakriti associates her with the active power of time, She is the Mistress of re who weaves the warp and woof ofAnt leon ana! Architecture in South Asia 258) countless aeons from age to age. She represents, the eyelic me-consciousness of nature that iscends the short span of individual dest Worlds emanate from her womb like bubt from an ocean. Without her pul: funetion, the whole of existence ‘unmoving as a corpse. Just as she is the creator, so she is the preserver of the infinite cyclic order of time. Her ceaseless mother- peet sustains life, while she simultaneously on her ataclysmie functions of creation ‘olution, Prakriti in her phenomenal aspect is associated with the concept of Maya represented in the circle of the yantra, The word Maya has two connotations. Positively, it is the spontaneous, inexplicable power of the divine; Kali is Mahamaya and the world is an effortless creation of her divine reflex. But in relation to created matter, the Maya- created world is viewed negatively as an all- pervasive vei in and ignorance. Maya is that which intoxicates humans and deludes them into taking the fleeting and shifting appearance of the world for reality. ‘The lesson of Maya is that humans must apprehend the true nature of the world, the inner meaning of its secret forces operating, beyond the flux of appearances. The circle of the Kali Yantra symbolically indicates that the veils of Maya, which confine one to the ‘circle’ of life, need to be pierced in order that one shall ‘see’ reality. The fifteen corners of the or delusi five concentric inverted triangles of the Kali Yantra represent the psychophysical states: the five organs of knowledge (jnanendriya); the five organs of action (karmendriya); the five vital airs (prana); ie. they relate to the body, the senses, and the receptive functions. ‘The Karpuradistotra states® that the symbols of the Kali Yantra are to be internalized by the worshipper through contemplation, while the famous poet-saint Ramprasad (1718-75 ce), in his hymn written in adoration of his patron goddess Kali, bids the worshipper to “Fashion Her image with the stuff of mind and set it on the throne of your heart.’ The Kali Yantra, in its conception and structure, is meant to function as a psycho-cosmogram, a symbol which unites the worshipper with the envisaged wholeness of the cosmos, that is Kali herself. This equation is poetically described in Shri Kalika Suktam: © fifteen Mothers, who are established in the five inverted triangles, the [eight Matrka Saktis} who reside in the filaments of the eight petalled lotus, and the Bhairavas who dwell in the square May you together (samam) enclosure, ‘manifest in my heart lotus.** ‘The evolution of the cl iconography of Kali was c consolidation of Shakta Tantra theology in Bengal. The process of consolidation and integration was no coincidence. It was initiated by a well-skilled brahmin community of scholars, who recast their philosophical ideas to the intellectual needs of the time. Post the Turkish invasion in the thirteenth centu the brahmins were drawn towards the existing ‘Tantric traditions of Bengal. They both Nineteeth- century Bengal had a long and established tradition of Sanskrit scholars such as Panchanana Tarkaratna (born 1867 ce), and Shivachandra Vidyarnava, the preceptor of Arthur Avalon, and a group of erudite Shakta gurus who were rewriting goddess theology. It is understood that the emergence of Tantra in Bengal provided a space for negotiation between orthodox Brahmanie philosophies and the existent indigenous pre-Brahmanical ‘goddess traditions, as well as revisions and reshaping of a goddess theology in the light of monistic Tantrie philosophy. This reorientation of philosophical categories to define the goddess theology was based on the dualistic principles of Purusha and Prakriti, adopted and modified their ritualsthe well established constituents of the ancient Samkhya principles. There was an obvious attempt to ‘tantrize’ Samkhya by assimilating it into the monistic Shakti principle of the Tantras. In the context of Shakta Tantra, the Purusha and Praki principles assume the unitive role of Shiva and Shakti, who are sexually polarized, into the male and female principles permeating creation, The Tantras reject the Samkhya ww that Prakriti represents unconscious (achetana) matter or world creation. It is rightly pointed out by Jacobson that “When Prakrti was identified with Goddess, Devi, the older Samkhya dualism between passive consciousness and active materiality was abandoned.”** In the Shakta Tantra, Prakriti represents the highest principle of creation, namely the _great goddess, who is consciousness (chaitanya) personified. The modifications of Prakriti are none other than the female goddesses. Thus, in the symbolism of the Kali Yantra, each constituent of Prakriti is also personified as a goddess who presides over different parts of the yantra (Fig. 18.7). ‘The Bengal Puranas dedicated to the goddess, namely the Devibhagvata Purana and the Brahmavaivarta, stress the unity of Purusha and Prakriti. In this newly interpreted concept, Prakriti is synonymous to the Shakti principle of the Tantras. The Devibhagvata Purana encodes the concept of Prakriti in several ways and finally identified Prakriti and Shakti as one singular prineiple of creation: ‘The Prefix Pra means exalted, superior, excellent; the affix Kritin ns ereatior ‘Therefore, the goddess, the most excellent ‘one, in the work of ereation is known as Devi Prakrti. The state of ereation denoted by Pra and Kri signifies the manifested creation. Hence, the great goddess who exists in he primal state before creation is Praki The Kal Yana 2 ‘The letter Sa signifies prosperity, Kti denotes might, strength, and in as much as she (the goddess) is the bestower of the above two, the Mula Prakrti is named Sakti Mahamaya Kalika is thus undecaying, unaging, free from the repeated ¢ as she is both one who is eternal (nitya) and. transient (anitya) simultaneously. She is cognized in the ultimate state as partless (nishkala), qualityless (nirguna), endles (ananta) and formless (arupa). She is les of time simultaneously present everywhere as the matrix of being (sattamatra) unknowable to the senses (agochara). In other words, her ultimate persona has no appearance or n abstract disappearance. It is merel awareness or cognition. This supreme essence of wholeness is reflected in her yantra in the ‘bindu. While the goddess Kali remains the source of innumerable Shaktis, who create the world and are like rays of light radiating from the whole who occupy different places in the yantra, she herself remains motionless, and changeless (nirvikara), like a mass of pure light of consciousness (chidghana) in the dimensionless point, the bindu. It is prec the elusive abstraction, which distinguishes the representation of the yantra from an anthropomorphic image as the former ues to act as an all image of lity of Kali’s creation. reason that the later Tantras ielusi integrate the worship of yantra with its contained abstraction and give the highest place to it and often describe it as yantra-raja, “King of Yantras”.8# I tend to view the gendered theology and meta-narrative of the Kali Yantra as a part of t process. It is plausible to conclude that the holistic imaging of the yantra was found to be the cosmocized ‘most appropriate to repres theology of Kali, The worship of Kali without the yantra, though found in some places, is‘toon ana n South Asia 260| traced to Pauranie sources, and is not sanctioned by the Tantras. CONCLUSION Dakshina Kali’s iconography has evolved gradually and changed as I see in three successive phases. In her archetypal form, Kali was worshipped as an amorphous stone block placed in Kali talas, under trees. The variation in her icons appears when she is visualized in her fierce form in her anthropomorphic image as a liminal deity living in the forest hinterland. In the next phase, under the spell of Vaishnava devotionalism, her image is domesticated and her facial features ‘sweetened’. The final phase of evolution of her iconography assumes the form of a geometrical yantra where the goddess appears as a personified abstraction of the totality of the cosmos. The accretions in her iconie splendour are greatly facilitated by the triumph of the Shakta Tantra tradition in Bengal, which regarded the worship of the yantra to be at par, or even superior, to the anthropomorphic image. Modern scholarship has brought to light that by the post-medieval period, Kali’s extreme forms were domesticated and acquired a soft and gentle demeanour. This was precipitated by the tide of devotionalism that spread in Bengal. This is evidenced in the Mahabhagvata Purana’s devotionalism and the love-drenched lyrics of Bengali bhakti poets in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.35 ‘The transformation in her persona is almost co- terminus with the transformation of her iconie features. The terrific and furious visage is replaced with auspicious symbols that exalt her as a loving, caring mother. Although her attire and ornaments are retained, her face has a gentle smiling countenance. Her late embodiments in clay sculpture and painting are ‘tamed’ and made less fierce, than her earlier depictions. Two observations are worth noting about the changing iconography of Kali. Firstly, scholars have imposed their preference for the ‘wild Kali in the study of the goddess. Secondly, this gives a one-sided view based on selective reading of texts. What I attempted to explore in. this brief essay is that the introduction of the unique aniconie image of the Kali Yantra helped in defanging the earlier fierce embodiments of Kali as a deity who loves liquor, flesh and blood and added a new dimension to her iconography and identity formation. The Kali Yantra in its conception mirrored her ascendancy in absolute terms, as the highest principle of the cosmos. It established Kali’s ontological status in daily worship transforming her terror-drenched imagery into an abstraction based on theological categories. Although her st the Absolute was acknowledged in the Puranas, and the Tantras, several literary and philosophical metaphors were integrated into her rituals through the introduction of yantra worshij What is portrayed in the aniconie Kali is not the death-dealing goddess, angry and capricious, haunting the cremation ground. She is neither a liminal deity living on the edges of society, nor a receiver of blood and sacrifices of her devotees, or simply a compassionate loving mother-figure of humankind. She is something more. She is supreme and a fully autonomous cosmocized deity—an all-inclusive presence of transcendence and immanence. It is the form of aniconic Kali, of Time, of Maya, presiding over the five elements, the tattuas of the ‘cosmos, who is given due recognition in her yantra. In one sense her ontological status portrayed through her yantra complements her other portrayals and elevates her status further to the highest position of power. The unifying iconography of the iconic and aniconie Kali was a special innovation of the Shakta Tantras during the period of theirrevival in Bengal in the post-medieval era. The philosophical symbolism of her yantra established a meta-narrative that gave prominence to her ontological status that tended to overshadow her overtly fierce iconography into a meta-abstraction that was NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. David R. Kinsley, The Sword and the Flute, Kali and Krsna, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1075, p. 81. 2, Samanta Banerjee, Logie in a Popular Form: Essays on Popular Religion in Bengal, Seagull Books, Caleutta, 2002, pp. 31-48, gives a detailed overview on Kali’s popular history. 3. Kapildeva Narayana (tts. of Srikrsnananda Agamvagisa, Vol. 1, Chowkhambha Surabharati Prakashan, Delhi, 2007, pp. 604, 609. 4. Jitendra Nath Banerjea, The Development of, Hindu Iconography, second edition, Caleutta University Press, Calcutta, 1956, pp. 82-83, Brhattantrasara note 1. 5. TA. Gopinatha Rao, Elements of Hindu Ieonography, Reprint, Vol. | and II, Part 1, Paragon Book Corp., Delhi, 1968, PP. 330-32. 6. Ajit Mukherjee, Tantra Art: Its Philosophy ‘and Physies, Ravi Kumar, Paris/New York, 1967, p. 23, now in the Ajit Mookerjee collection, in the National Muscum, New Delhi, Ace. No, 82.481, 7. Madhu Khanna, Yantra: The Tantric Symbol of Cosmie Unity, Reprint, Thames and Hudson, London 1979, 1989, p. 63, Plate 26. 8. Jackie Menzies, Goddess Divine Energy (Exhibition Catalogue), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2002, p. 168. 9. Vidya Dehejia, Devi: The Great Goddess— Female Divinity in South Asian Art (Exhibition Catalogue), Smithsonian Institution, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington D.C., 1999, p. 205, 10. David R. Kinsley, Tantric Visions of the Divine University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997. Femini totally rationalized. The Kali image in her aniconic yantra form was supported by a feminine theology based on Shakta-Samkhya synthesis, and has survived today as one of the greatest living Shakta traditions of Tantric worship in Bengal. 11, Ramkumar Rai (ed.), Kularnava Tantra, Prachya Prakashan, Varanasi, 1999, Chapter 5.86. CF 686; 17.6. For discussion see Gudrun Bihnemann et al., Mandalas and Yantras in the Hindu Traditions, D.K. Printworld, New Delhi 2007, p. 28, note 40. 12. Khanna, op. eit., Chapter 1, pp. 21-24. 1. Rajesha Diksit, Kali Tantra Sastra, Lokopayogi Tantra-vijnana mala, No. 3, Agra, 995. 14. Kapildeva Narayana (trs.), op. cit., pp. 603- 09. 15. Arthur Avalon, with introduction and commentary by Vimalananda Swami Karpuradi-stotra (Hymn to Kali), Ganesh and Co., Madras, 1953, verse 18, pp. 86-88, 125-26. 16. Kali-upanisad. In Saktapramoda, Edited with an Introduction in English by Madhu Khanna, Rashtriya Samsthan, Tantra Foundation and D.K. Printworld, Delhi, 2013, pp. 79-80. 17. Acarya Pandit Sivadatta Misra Sastri, Kalirahasya with Sivadatti Hindi Vyakhya, Krsnadasa Akademi, Varanasi, 1998, Chapter aff, 18. Karpuradi-stotra, p. 125; Diksit, Kali Tantra, p. aff, 19. Diksit, Kali Tantra, verses 41-42, pp. 22-23 20. Angelo Andrea Di Castro, ‘Archaeology of the Goddess: An Indian Paradox’, in Jayant Bhalchandra Bapat and lan Mabbett (eds.), The Iconic Female Goddesses of India, Nepal ‘and Tibet, BPA Print, Monash Asia Institute, Melbourne, 2008, pp. 26-27. Pandit Chakreswar Bhattacharya, Saktadarsana, Navajivan Press, Calcutta, 1970, 9, p. 224. 21 The Kal 2611. leon an Architecture in South Asia 260| 24 25. 26. Sanjukta Gupta, The Worship of Kali According to Todala Tantra’ in David Gordon White (ed), Tantra in Practice, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 2001 (pp. 463- 8), p. 481; Ajit Mookerjee, Kali, the Feminine Force, Thames and Hudson, London, 1988, p. 32. Menzies, op. ci., Plate 104, p. 168; Deheiia, 0p. cit, p. 205. Kapildeva Narayana (trs.), op. cit, pp. 587- 90; and Prakash Pandey and Ganganath sha (eds.), Kalipuia-paddhati, Sanskrit Vidyapitha Sanskrit Series 41, Shree Ganganatha Jha Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapitha, Allahabad, 1995, pp. 68-72: Acarya Pandit Sivadatta Misra Sastri, op. cit., pp. 16-17. Pandit Chakreswar Bhattacharya, op. eit., p. 200ff. Benoytosh Bhattacharyya (ed.), Saktisangama Tantra, Vol. 1, Sundarikhanda, Gackwad Oriental Series No. CIV, Government Press, Baroda, 1947, Chapters 12-18. 27, 28. 29. 30. 3 32. 34. 35. Note that the Saktisangama Tantra 16.37, p. 118, does not give the weapons of Nila, but they are described in her dhyana. Kali-upanisad, pp. 88, 125-27, 143 ‘The interpretation is based on Karpunidi- stotra, pp. 125-27. Kali Tantra cited in Karpuradi-stotra, p. Knut A. Jacobson, ‘The Female Role of the Godhead in Tantrism and the Prakrti of, Samkhya’, Numen, Vol. 43, Fase. 1, Jan. 1996, pp. 56-91, p. 64f. Ibid, Swami Vijnananda (trs.), Devi-bhagvata Purana, The Sri Maddevibhagvatam, Vol. 26, Sudhindra Nath Vasa, Allahabad, 1921, 9.15ff; 91.7; 92.9, pp. 797-81 Karpuradi-stotra, p. 135. Patricia Dold, "Kali the Terrific and Her Tests: The Sakta Devotionalism of the Mahabhagavata Purana’, in Rachel Fell MeDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal (eds.), Encountering Kali in the Margins, at the Center, in the West, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2003, pp. 39-59. 5.