Devalok
In stone and bronze · 1 telling · East India

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.

Who is in it

The story, beat by beat

  1. Kali, in her fury after battle, dances on the field of the dead.
  2. The gods send Shiva to stop her; he lies down in her path.
  3. She steps on him, realises whose chest is under her foot and puts out her tongue.
  4. Bengal reads the image as a statement: without Shakti, Shiva is only a corpse.
  5. The Howrah dance Kalikapatadi acts out Kali's rampage and Shiva's attempts to calm her.
  6. At Dakshineswar Ramakrishna's devotion made the same goddess the universal Mother.

shakti corpse dance feminine power

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Folk documentation

Bengal Shakta iconography and folk dance

East India · Bengal; Howrah; Dakshineswar Shakta Bengali Shakta

The Kali of Bengal is pictured standing on Shiva, who lies beneath her like a corpse. The scene usually told is of her battle-dance that would not stop until Shiva lay down in front of her and she found her foot on his chest, the shock showing in her out-thrust tongue. Bengal's reading is a Shakta one: the god with Shakti is Shiva; without her, one letter short, he is shava, a dead body. The Kalikapatadi dance of Howrah plays out her destruction of the demons and Shiva's efforts to bring her back to herself. Dakshineswar, where Ramakrishna served the goddess in the nineteenth century, is where this same Kali came to be spoken of as the Mother of the universe.

Kali — Wikipedia; Kalikapatadi — Wikipedia; Kali rises in the East; Dakshineswar Kali Temple — Wikipedia

Sources: Kali — Wikipedia; Kalikapatadi — Wikipedia; Kali rises in the East; Dakshineswar Kali Temple — Wikipedia

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