Devalok
Legend · 2 tellings · Pan-India, South India

Kali and the demon Daruka

The demon Daruka can be killed by no man, so Shiva brings out of himself a goddess: Kali from the poison in his throat in the Linga Purana, Bhadrakali from his third eye in Kerala. She kills Daruka, and her anger is cooled only when Shiva lies in her path as a crying baby.

Who is in it

Places: Kerala, Kodungallur · Texts: Linga Purana, Mudiyettu

The story, beat by beat

  1. Daruka, by Brahma's boon, cannot be killed by any man and drives the gods from heaven.
  2. Parvati enters Shiva's body and takes form from the poison in his throat as Kali (Linga Purana); in Kerala Bhadrakali springs from Shiva's third eye.
  3. The gods give her their weapons and she kills Daruka.
  4. Her anger does not stop; Shiva lies as a crying infant in the cremation ground, she nurses him, and he drinks her anger.
  5. Kerala's Mudiyettu acts the battle each year in the Bhagavati temples.

anger boon motherhood ritual theatre

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Encyclopedia

Linga Purana 1.106

Pan-India Shakta

The demon Daruka, given a boon that only a woman can kill him, harries the gods. Brahma and the gods go to Shiva, and Shiva asks Parvati. She enters his body and from the poison that stays in his throat takes a new form, black, with a third eye and a trident, Kali. She kills Daruka with her army of ghosts. But her anger burns on and threatens the world. Shiva takes the form of a crying baby and lies in the cremation ground; she picks him up and suckles him, and he drinks her anger with the milk. Then he dances at twilight with his ghosts and she dances with him until she is calm.

Bhadrakali, Wikipedia

Folk documentation

Kerala: Darika vadham and Mudiyettu

South India · Central Kerala Shakta

In Kerala the demon is Darika, who with Danavendra won from Brahma immunity from any man but was cursed that a woman would kill him. Narada gives Shiva the design and Shiva opens his third eye: Bhadrakali comes out, the gods give her their weapons, and on the vetala she rides into battle and cuts off Darika's head. Mudiyettu, performed after the harvest in the Bhagavati temples of central Kerala, plays the whole night of the battle, with Narada, Shiva, Darika and Kali in their great headdresses, and the village as her army. It went onto UNESCO's list in 2010.

Darika, Wikipedia; Mudiyettu, Wikipedia (UNESCO 2010)

Sources: Bhadrakali, Wikipedia; Darika, Wikipedia; Mudiyettu, Wikipedia (UNESCO 2010)

More stories with the same people

Local story

Vaishno Devi and Bhairon Nath

A girl born of the three great goddesses waits on Trikuta mountain for Rama's promise; in the Kali age she feeds Pandit Shridhar's village, flees the Tantric Bhairon Nath up the mountain, hides nine months in a cave, beheads him at the mouth of her own, and grants him that her pilgrims must also visit him.
Temple legend

The dance at the banyan forest

Kali, drunk with the blood of the demons she has killed, rules the banyan forest of Tiruvalangadu and terrifies it, until Shiva comes and she challenges him to dance. He drops an earring, picks it up with his toe and lifts his foot to his ear, and she cannot follow. At Chidambaram she loses the same contest and is sent to the edge of the town.
Origin

Sati and the ten forms

Forbidden by Shiva to go to her father Daksha's sacrifice, Sati turns dark and terrible; when Shiva runs, she stands before him in every direction in ten forms, names them, and goes. Oral tellings put the same ring of ten round Shiva when he tries to leave Parvati or Kali.
In stone and bronze

Shiva under Kali's feet

Bengal's Kali stands on a corpse-like Shiva: without Shakti he is shava, a body; a Howrah folk dance plays the scene.
Legend

Kali, Chamunda and the blood of Raktabija

Kali springs from the dark brow of the angry Goddess, eats an army, beheads Chanda and Munda and is named Chamunda; then she drinks the blood of Raktabija so that no more demons can rise from it. Bengal and Odisha add the ending: her foot falls on Shiva, and she bites her tongue.
Festival story

The goddess who would not be married (Shumbha and Nishumbha)

Shumbha and Nishumbha have taken heaven; hearing of a beautiful woman in the Himalaya, they send a messenger to bring her as a bride. She answers that she vowed to marry only one who beats her in battle. Their generals and Nishumbha fall, and when Shumbha says she fights with others' strength, she takes all the goddesses back into herself and kills him alone.
Legend

Kalki and the princess of Simhala

In the late Kalki Purana, Kalki learns from Parashurama, receives a horse, a sword and a talking parrot from Shiva, and through the parrot finds Padmavati of Simhala, whose every suitor turns into a woman; he marries her and the cursed kings become men again.
From the epics

Rama breaks Shiva's bow

At Janaka's court in Mithila no king can lift the bow of Shiva that is Sita's bride-price; the young Rama lifts it, strings it and breaks it in two, and wins Sita. Tulsidas sets it at a crowded contest, and brings in Parashurama, furious at the sound.