Kali and food
Kali and food is the theme of hunger, eating and being eaten in stories of Kali, one of the most feared, revered and misunderstood goddesses of Hinduism. Kali is central to Shakta traditions, which treat the goddess (devi or shakti) as the supreme reality. In the texts studied by Sundari Johansen, Kali's appetite is not just a sign of ferocity: it becomes a way of saying something about the whole universe.[1]
The warrior who eats her enemies
In the Devi Mahatmyam (c. 5th–6th century CE, part of the Markandeya Purana), Kali appears as the embodiment of the goddess Durga's rage. She defeats demon armies by making them her food. In the story of Raktabija, a demon from each of whose blood-drops a new warrior springs, Kali wins by drinking the blood before it can reach the ground.[1] Johansen notes that in these stories Kali's hunger is triggered by cosmic imbalance and satisfied when balance returns, and that death at her hands brings liberation.[1]
Scholars have read her eating in different ways. Madeleine Biardeau argued that Kali drinks the demon's blood because Durga, higher in the purity hierarchy, cannot. Herman Tull saw Kali's red tongue as holding together the "raw and instinctual" and the "refined and restrained", and linked it with Agni, the Vedic fire that consumed sacrifices.[1] Johansen also reads Kali's colours through the three qualities (gunas) of Samkhya philosophy: black skin for tamas, a red tongue for rajas and white teeth for sattva.[1]
The hungry girl
The Yogini Tantra, composed in Assam no later than the late 16th century, tells a different kind of story. The demon Kola has conquered the gods. Kali takes the form of a pitiful orphan girl (kumari) and begs him: "I am hungry, great king, please give me food!" Kola feeds her feast after feast until she has eaten his treasury, his horses, elephants, chariots and army, and finally Kola himself.[1]
The text gives this as the origin of kumari puja, the worship of a young girl as the living goddess, which is now widespread at Durga Puja and Navaratri. Feeding the girl by hand is the heart of the rite. Johansen's informant Rajib Sarma explained in 2012: "if we feed the creative force, then we feel that the creative force will be energized more."[1] The text forbids choosing the girl by caste. Other Tantric texts list the offerings, such as madhuparka (curd, milk, water, ghee and honey) and fruit; earlier texts include meat, later ones are vegetarian.[1]
The eater of everything
In another episode of the Yogini Tantra, Shiva boasts and orders Kali to create a world; she replies that without her he is a corpse (shava). Shiva then creates a demon double, Ghora. Kali reveals her cosmic form to him; Ghora realises the ultimate reality, is liberated, and is then eaten.[1] Johansen ties this to the Upanishads, where the Brihadaranyaka identifies the world with food and the eater of food, and the Taittiriya identifies the self and ultimate reality (brahman) with both. Her conclusion: "Kali is brahman – the eater of all – and everything is her food."[1]
This links philosophy, storytelling and the kitchen. Where many traditions offer food to a god, Kali's stories make eating itself the picture of how the universe works.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Johansen, Sundari. "Storytelling: The Hungry Goddess: Food, Consumption, and Liberation in Tantric Kali Narratives". In Zeller, Benjamin E.; Kornberg Greenberg, Yudit (eds.). The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Food. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 246–260.