Kālī Pūjā

The story behind the day

Kālī Pūjā is the autumn festival of the goddess Kālī, kept especially in north-eastern India and notably in Bengal. It falls on the dark-moon night of Kārttika, three weeks after Durgā Pūjā, and coincides with Diwali elsewhere in India. The fierce goddess, garlanded with severed heads, is worshipped as a mother who protects those who call on her. This calendar counts the festival from the new-moon night of the dark fortnight of Āśvina, by the tithi that holds at midnight.^[1–5]

Origins

The Devīmāhātmya, the Glory of the Goddess, is a Sanskrit text of 700 verses that was set into the older Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa. The British Museum dates it to roughly 400 to 600 CE. In it, Kālī springs from the brow of the goddess Durgā in one of her battles with demons, a ferocious manifestation of Durgā's rage. A scholar of Bengali festivals notes that from at least the sixth century Kālī has been claimed as a form of Durgā.^[6–8]

What it marks

Kālī is one of the forms of Śakti, the transformative feminine energy that Shaktas honour in the Great Goddess, a faith popular in north-eastern India. She is linked with time and its power to create and to destroy. The goddess is terrifying in appearance, yet she is believed to protect and enlighten those who call on her. Her images show her wearing a garland of severed heads and dancing on the body of Śiva.^{[4–5, 9–10]}

How it came to be

Kālī is the historic patron deity of Calcutta, and the temple at Kalighat is the centre of her rites. In Bengal she is worshipped as Kālī Mā, the benevolent mother, a devotional view of the goddess that the saints Rāmprasād in the eighteenth century and Rāmakṛṣṇa in the late nineteenth did much to spread. Her festival comes three weeks after Durgā's, on the night of the dark moon in Kārttika, and so falls on the same night as Diwali elsewhere in India.^{[1, 3, 11]}

How it is kept

Dakshineswar at midnight, hibiscus garlandsIllustration · AI-generated

Kālī Pūjā is a Bengali street festival: thousands of temporary images are set up. Animal sacrifice has traditionally been offered to the goddess, and live goats may be brought to the temple as offerings, though many now offer vegetables in place of animals. Because Diwali falls on the same night, in Bengal the festival of lights is also the night of the goddess. Kālī Pūjā is celebrated across the world, though especially in north-eastern India.^{[1–2, 12–13]}

Sources

Each statement above was checked against published sources; the verdict says whether it stood as written, was corrected or was hedged.