Mahakali theme whatsapp status video collection

 Mahakali theme whatsapp status video collection

The origins of Mahakali can be found in various Puranic and Tantric Hindu scriptures (Shastras). She is variously depicted in Shaktism texts as the Adi-Shakti, the Primeval Force of the Universe, identical with the Ultimate Reality, or Brahman. She is also known as the (female) Prakriti or World, as opposed to the (male) Purusha or Consciousness, or as one of three Mahadevi (The Great Goddess) manifestations that represent the three Gunas or attributes in Samkhya philosophy. Tamas, or the force of inertia, is represented by Mahakali in this interpretation.

 

The Devi Mahatmya ("Greatness of the Goddess") text, later interpolated into the Markandeya Purana and considered a core text of Shaktism (the branch of Hinduism that considers Durga to be the highest aspect of Godhead), assigns a different form of the Goddess (Mahasaraswati, Mahalakshmi, and Mahakali) to each of the three episodes therein. Mahakali is assigned to the first episode here. She is described as an abstract energy, Vishnu's yoganidra.

 

In popular Indin art, Mahakali is most often depicted with a blue/black complexion.

Her most common four-armed iconographic image depicts each hand holding a crescent-shaped sword, a trishul (trident), a severed demon's head, and a bowl or skull-cup (kapala) catching the severed head's blood. Her eyes are described as red with intoxication and rage, her hair is dishevelled, small fangs occasionally protrude from her mouth, and her tongue is lolling.

After consuming the blood of the demons she slays, it drips from her lolling tongue. She wears a skirt made of demon arms and is adorned with a garland made of the heads of demons she has slaughtered, which is variously enumerated at 108 (an auspicious number in Hinduism and the number of countable beads on a Japa Mala, similar to a rosary, for repetition of Mantras).

 

Her ten-headed (dashamukhi) image is known as the 10 Mahavidyas Mahakali, and she is said to represent the ten Mahavidyas or "Great Wisdom (Goddess)s" in this form. She is occasionally depicted sitting on a flaming grave or a rotting corpse. Her complexion is described as that of a starless night sky. She is depicted in this form as having ten heads, thirty flaming eyes, ten arms, and ten legs, but otherwise follows the four-armed icon.

Each of her ten hands is holding a different implement, but they all represent the power of one of the devas and are frequently the identifying weapon or ritual item of a given Deva. The implication is that Mahakali encompasses and is responsible for the powers possessed by these deities, which is consistent with the interpretation that Mahakali is identical with Brahman. While not displaying ten heads, a "ekamukhi," or one-headed image, may be displayed with ten arms, signifying the same concept: the various Gods' powers are only available through her grace.

   

In both of these images, she is shown standing on Shiva's prone, inert body. The most common interpretation is that Mahakali represents Shakti, the power of pure creation in the universe, and Shiva represents pure Consciousness, which is inert in and of itself. While this is a more advanced concept in monistic Shaktism, it also agrees with Kashmir's Nondual Trika philosophy, also known as Kashmir Shaivism and most famously associated with Abhinavagupta.

There is a saying that "Shiva without Shakti is Shava," which means that Shiva (or consciousness itself) is inactive without the power of action (Shakti), which is Mahakali (represented as the short I in Devanagari); Shava means corpse in Sanskrit, and the play on words is that all Sanskrit consonants are assumed to be followed by a short letter "a" unless otherwise noted. The female power, or Shakti, that activates Creation is represented by the short letter "i."

This is frequently used to explain why she is standing on Shiva, who is both her husband in Shaktism and the Supreme Godhead in Shaivism. Another interpretation is that the wild destructive Mahakali can only be stopped in the presence of Shiva, the God of Consciousness, in order to keep the balance of life from being completely overrun by wild nature.