Post No. 14,547
Date uploaded in London – 23 May 2025
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tamilandvedas.com, swamiindology.blogspot.com
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Kali (kaali) Killing Shiva (Kaala); Why?
Hindus see Goddess Kali (kaali) killing or standing on Lord Shiva (kaala/time) in paintings and statues. Many wonders about the image and get many explanations. Hindus are the best story tellers in the world. Visit one lakh (100,000) temples in India and you will get three lakh stories or more! Read the sthala purana (local shrine history) of each temple you will have more than three stories for each temple.
Regarding Kali killing Kala/Shiva , there is a very simple explanation. We all know that we came from our mother. But mother can’t produce children without a male partner, unless cloning is done. That is also in Hinduism. Goddess Kali stopped one million Hitlers by killing Rakta Bheeja (Blood Seed) . That demon’s every drop of blood produced one more demon. So cloning is nothing new to Hindus. It is in many other Hindu stories as well.
My explanation
Kali is wearing skulls as garland, the symbol of death. Shiva is called Kaala (Time or Yama or Death).
The word Kaala has got three meanings: Time, Yama, Death. (In Ujjain, one of the twelve Jyotir Linga Shrines, we have Maha Kala/ Eternal Time). Tamil news papers refer to death as Time Finito. They write in obituary columns so and so’s time finished; in Tamil, Kaalam Aanaar; it has two meanings: he has become time or his time is finished)
Kala (kaala)is cyclical according to Hindus; but western scientists say it is linear.
So, Kali (kaali) killing Shiva (kaala) is death and rebirth. Abrahamic religions don’t believe in rebirth; but all oriental religions believe in rebirth. So, this image is the death and rebirth.
Who came first? Mother or Father?
Not even a scientist can answer this question; it is like the chicken and egg puzzle. But Hindus named Goddess as Shakti; all use this word in India, including Tamils, for power; In the same way all use the word Shiva for motionless or dormant; Tamils say be shiva; in Tamil Shivane endru Iru.
Here Hindus mean Goddess is kinetic energy and Shiva is Potential Energy. This is also seen in the image (Kali killing Shiva)
Forest Fire : Good or Bad?
Mahabharata and Vedic scriptures, Sangam Tamil Books and later Bharati poems sing about Forest Fires. Pandava’s paents and Kaurava’s parents died in forest fire according to Mahabharata. Krishna and Arjuna burnt the Khandava Vana and drove the Nagas to South America who established Mayan, Aztec, Olmec and Inca civilizations with the illiterate tribes there; another ignorant foreigner coined the word Gondwana land from Khandava Vana of Mahabharata.
Forest fires are natural phenomena that create new life by destroying millions of living beings. Hindus knew that and used it in every day news papers. Tamil newspapers write every day- the news spread like wild fire (in Tamil , seithi kaattuth thee pola paraviyathu)
Goddess is wild fire and Shiva is the dead creatures coming back to life as new plants and living beings.
Even foreigners see Indra killing Demon Vrtra, which is repeated many hundred times in the Vedas, Rain killing Drought. In short, all the natural things such as death and rebirth, destruction and reconstruction, Rain and Drought, Forest Fire and New life are given as stories in Hindu scriptures and Hindu images.
Organic Chemistry
All science students know that we have more, much more, compounds in Organic Chemistry than Inorganic chemistry. Our body is full of Organic compounds. It is carbon based. The element Carban is a Sanskrit/Tamil word.
Kali= Kaali= Kaala/Yama/Siva= Kari (Kari in Tamil all mean Black; that is Carbon. The word Carbon came from this Kali, Kaali, Kaala, Kari. We even use Charred. Kari=Kali . R and L are interchangeable according to Sanskrit grammar.
So, Goddess Kaali and God Kaala (Shiva’s another name) represent organic chemistry; when our bodies are burnt we become Kaali=Kaala= Carbon. And we come back as Carbon (our body is made up of Carbon compounds) This is also known to Hindus when they created the image Kali killing Kaala/Shiva.
Tantric cult was practised in Assam and West Bengal. Long ago human sacrifices were offered to goddess, and it is believed that the victim reincarnated as lord Shiva. Kalika Purana has a chapter on this. We see human sacrifice in Indus valley seals as well. Throughout Tamil Nadu we see human sacrifice statues called Nava Kandam statues. We see it in Mahabharata too. Just before the war began Aravan sacrificed himself. In the deep forests of India, tribals sacrificed people to goddess ritually. All believed in the incarnation of the victims. In short, you can see human sacrifice in all parts of Ancient India (other parts of the world too).
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FROM ANOTHER WEBSITE
This is the similar notion to that which is so eloquently expressed by Adi Shankara in his well-known Saundarya Lahari [‘The Waves of Beauty’] –
“sivah saktya yukto yadi bhavati saktah prabhavitum
na cedevam devo na khalu kusalah spanditumapi”
“If Shiva is joined with His Shakti, then He becomes empowered to Manifest and Impel the Universe
But without Her, Even the Mighty God is indeed unable to even Move nor Mentally Conceive”
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From Jaggi Vasudev’s Website:
Question: Sadhguru, I have seen quite a few images of Kali standing on the chest of Shiva’s corpse. What is the significance of this scene?
How Kali Killed Shiva
Sadhguru: This is a certain story trying to depict how the feminine dimension of energy functions. Once, it so happened that various demons started dominating the world. Many evil forces started taking over the world. So Kali went into a fury. When she went wild, there was no stopping her. She just went and slaughtered everything.
Her fury would not stop. It was going on, beyond reason, beyond the necessary action needed for that situation, beyond everything. Because her fury had picked up such momentum and it would not subside, and because she was continuing the slaughter, no one dared to go and stop her. They approached Shiva and said, “She is going on like this. She is your woman. Please do something to rein her in.”
Shiva approached Kali as he knew her. He went towards her without aggression, not in a battle mode. He simply went. But Kali’s energy went to such a scale that it knocked Shiva himself down. Only when she stood over him did she realize what she had done. Then she slowed down and once again breathed life into him.
Devi Takes Off Her Own Head
There are various tantric processes which are based on this particular event. You might have seen images and paintings of tantrics who have taken off their own head and are walking, holding the head in their hand. Or you may have seen Devi herself, depicted as taking off her head and holding it in her hand and walking. There are various tantric processes involved where people actually decapitate themselves and once again fix the head back. There are certain rituals through which this is done.
Tantra: Unmaking and Making Life
I know that today, most people think tantra means unbridled promiscuity. This is because most of the tantric books today are written by Americans, and people read about tantra from magazines and books. Tantra does not mean promiscuity. Tantra means extreme discipline. Tantra means a technology, a method, a capability to unmake life and make life again. Tantra is to have such mastery over the system that you can dismantle life completely and put it back again.
The Symbolism of Kali killing Shiva
You can have such mastery over life that life and death are both so completely in your hands, that you can dismantle life and put it back again. You can even kill the Divine and bring him back. This is not a feat that you are trying to show off to somebody. It is because you want to have such mastery over life.
Unless you have some mastery over life, you cannot do anything. Everyone has some mastery over life. Otherwise, what could you do? The level of mastery that you have determines how much you can do.
The image of Kali standing on Shiva essentially symbolizes having total mastery over the process of life. It means that you can kill God himself and then give life back to him. That is audacious, isn’t it? That is how the technology of tantra is.
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AI INFORMATION
Kali is often depicted standing on Shiva due to a story where Kali, in a fierce, destructive state, threatened to destroy the universe. Shiva, to stop her, laid down before her, allowing her to stand on him. This act symbolizes Kali’s ability to control even the divine, and her later remorse after realizing she was trampling her own husband.
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In Hinduism, while the terms “kinetic” and “potential energy” aren’t explicitly used in the same way as in physics, the concepts of energy and its different manifestations are central to various aspects of the tradition. Kinetic energy, the energy of motion, can be seen as related to the concept of Shakti, the divine feminine energy of creation and change, and Prana, the life force or vital energy. Potential energy, the stored energy of position, can be linked to the concept of Shakti’s potential to create, maintain, and transform.
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In the Greek and Roman World
One God killing another God is in all Greek and other myths. Scholars again interpret it as Spring season killing Winter or Revival of things that are destroyed. Here are some examples:
In Greek mythology, Zeus battled and killed Campe to free the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires (hundred handed ones) from Tartarus, a realm where they were imprisoned by the Titans. This is like Indra killing Vrtra or Vala to release the cows from the caves.
In the stories of the Greek god Zagreus, often identified with the earlier form of Dionysus, he is killed and dismembered by the Titans, but his heart is preserved. This heart is then used by Zeus to allow Zagreus to be reborn as Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Semele, according to various sources.
In Cybele’s story, she is found by Zeus (Indra of Greek Literature) and raped while sleeping in the form of a rock. Zeus’s rape is unsuccessful, and he spills his seed on the ground beside her. Cybele, given her hyper-fertility, becomes impregnated nonetheless, and births a hideous, dual-sex monster named Agdistis. Pausanias, the 2nd-century A.D. Greek author, then details the following:
[T]he gods, fearing Agdistis, cut off the male organ.
There grew up from it an almond-tree with its fruit ripe, and a daughter of the river Sangarius, they say, took of the fruit and laid it in her bosom, when it at once disappeared, but she was with child. A boy was born, and exposed, but was tended by a he-goat. As he grew up his beauty was more than human, and Agdistis fell in love with him. When he had grown up, Attis was sent by his relatives to Pessinus, that he might wed the king’s daughter.
The marriage-song was being sung, when Agdistis appeared, and Attis went mad and cut off his genitals, as also did he who was giving him his daughter in marriage. But Agdistis repented of what he had done to Attis, and persuaded Zeus to grant that the body of Attis should neither rot at all nor decay.
There are lot of stories like this in Greek and Latin literature hurting Gods, injuring Gods, killing Gods and the scholars say they are fertility rites.
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Meaning of Kali from Wisdomlib.org:
13) Kālī (काली):—[from kāla] a f. black colour, ink or blacking, [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
14) [v.s. …] abuse, censure, defamation, [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
15) [v.s. …] a row or succession of black clouds, [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
16) [v.s. …] night, [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
17) [v.s. …] a worm or animalcule generated in the acetous fermentation of milk (= kṣīra-kīṭa or kṣāra-kīṭa), [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
18) [v.s. …] the plant Kālāñjanī, [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
19) [v.s. …] Ipomoea Turpethum, [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
20) [v.s. …] a kind of clay, [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
21) [v.s. …] Bignonia suaveolens, [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
22) [v.s. …] one of the seven tongues or flames of fire, [Muṇḍaka-upaniṣad i, 2, 4]
23) [v.s. …] a form of Durgā, [Mahābhārata iv, 195; Harivaṃśa; Kumāra-sambhava]
24) [v.s. …] one of the Mātṛs or divine mothers, [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
25) [v.s. …] Name of a female evil spirit (mother of the Kālakeyas), [Harivaṃśa 11552]
26) [v.s. …] one of the sixteen Vidyā-devīs, [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
27) [v.s. …] Name of Satyavatī, wife of king Śāntanu and mother of Vyāsa or Kṛṣṇa-dvaipāyana (after her marriage she had a son Vicitra-vīrya, whose widows were married by Kṛṣṇa-dvaipāyana, and bore to him Dhṛta-rāṣṭra and Pāṇḍu, [Mahābhārata; Harivaṃśa]; according to other legends Kālī is the wife of Bhīmasena and mother of Sarvagata, [Bhāgavata-purāṇa])
—-Subham—-
Tags- Kali, killing, Shiva, Standing , Kaala , Time, Carbon, rebirth, revival, human sacrifice, forest fire, organic chemistry, mother, Greek myths, cloning, Rakta Bheeja, Hitler
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