In this episode, we’re going to talk about Kali. Many of you listeners have requested to hear the story of this Goddess. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do this time. We’ll cover a rather gory battle. And in the end, we’ll talk about her connections to two of the most famous rock and roll bands in history. And a connection with an Indiana Jones movie as well.
Before we begin today’s story it’s worth me explaining something about my dad. If you’ve heard previous shows you know by now that my dad is Brahma the creator of the Universe. When he’s not creating new stuff, he’s creating new supervillains. It’s not that he deliberately wants to create villains. It’s just that he is very easy to please, and far more generous with superpowers than what I would have liked. The only thing he’s got going for him is that he manages to work in some catch so that the newly created supervillains are not completely indestructible.
I pray to the world that the day never arrives that my dad forgets to put a weakness into someone he’s giving superpowers too. The entire universe shall pay a heavy price if he does. Now I know the future and I know exactly what happens. So I do already know whether Brahma is going to cause the destruction of the Universe or not. But I can’t tell you. I have a duty to humankind and rules to play by. I can’t tell you anything that might disrupt the stock market. That’s one of the stricter rules. You’ll thank me later. Maybe.
Not one, not two, not three but four villains in today’s story got their powers by praying to Brahma. So you’ll see why the preamble was necessary.
Shumbha was the new leader of the Asuras. His predecessor was Mahishasura. We had previously seen the Goddess Durga defeating Mahishasura in the Character of the Week segment on Episode 4. “But that was so long ago,” Shumbha objected. “The listeners could use a recap”. And he’s right. So what happened there was that Mahishasur, a half buffalo and half Asura who defeated a lot of Devs and drove them from their homes. He was able to do that because he was invincible. Thanks to my dad. Luckily, the catch was that Mahishasura had asked that he not be defeated by any man or God. He didn’t specify Woman or Goddess, which just goes to show what a misogynist he was. He got what he deserved when the Goddess Durga defeated him and ended his life.
Things should have been back to a happy state then, but Shumba and his brother Nishumba attacked Svarg again. The Devas had barely returned before they were ejected from their heavenly home again. Shumbha and Nishumba themselves had the same kind of powers from Brahma as Mahishasura had. But I won’t explain their weakness. That is for another time.
Now as Shumbha and Nishumba were settling themselves into heaven, they were also busy tracking the remaining Devas. These Devas had only recently installed elaborate trackers so they could see where all the other Devas were. A wise thing to have, if they needed anything. But at the same time it was very unwise to leave the system without any kind of password protection.
“Commander Shumba, I see the Devas are assembled in the Himalayas”
“Bro, should we fire missiles at them?” Nishumba suggested.
“Nope,” said Shumba. “Do you know how much those missiles cost? Both time and money! Let’s just send a couple of Asurs to spy on them. Maybe capture some embarrassing videos that we can post on social media to shame these Devas”
So they sent Chanda and Munda. Two Asuras who made their way quickly to where the Devas were. They were looking for embarrassing videos but what they found was very different.
You see, the Devas were praying to Durga. As it happens, Parvati, Shiva’s wife appeared on the scene. The Devas all started talking together all at once. In the babble of noises, you would not have heard a word of what was said. But then, Parvati is a Goddess. With her divine superpowers, she knew exactly why the Devas had come. She raised a hand and instantly there was silence.
“I know you wanted Durga, but give her a break will you? She just defeated Mahishasura for you. Can’t you keep these Asuras busy for a day or so?”
Another babble of voices and again Parvati had to raise a hand for silence.
“Alright, alright, I’ll get on it”. No sooner had she spoken those words, when suddenly in their midst appeared another Goddess. This was Ambika.
“She kinda looks like Durga, with the tiger thing and those weapons and all that”
“Hey, smartmouth,” said Ambika who had heard that whispered remark “allow me to have my own identity here, if it’s not too much trouble to your poor offended sensibilities.”
The Dev quickly apologized but Ambika ignored him. “I have a plan to defeat these Asuras.”
“A plan, that’s amazing! What is it?”
“It’s a proposal or intention or decision about what to do next. And next time you need to know what a word means, look it up yourself in a dictionary. As for what the plan is today, I’m just going to wait here” she said.
That sounded an odd sort of plan, but the Devas were too afraid to question Ambika.
“Ambika will be perfect, she’s just the Queen I was looking for” said a voice. It was Shumba’s voice coming from Munda’s phone, as the demon king was watching what Chanda and Munda were secretly broadcasting.
Chanda was puzzled by this. “I thought we came here to murder these Devas, now you want us to take your proposal to her?”
Munda silently tapped his head off camera to indicate that Shumba had finally gone mad, probably because he was drunk on all his power.
But an order is an order, so the two Asuras walked straight up to Ambika. They even carried a truce flag to make sure they wouldn’t be blasted out of sight.
“We have a proposal for you. How would you like to be Queen of the Asuras?” they asked Ambika.
If Ambika was surprised, she didn’t show it. She thought for a minute and replied. “It’s an interesting proposition. I’m going to, as the expression goes, play a little hard to get. Go tell your King that if he wants me, he has to defeat me in battle first”
“You and what army?” asked Munda, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“No army. Just plain old me” she laughed. “Now off you boys go, chop chop. Can’t keep an Asura king waiting”
Chanda and Munda called in. Shumba had been plucking petals from a flower hoping the answer would reveal that Ambika in fact would accept his proposal. But he was disappointed. Still when he thought about it, he figured Ambika was testing him. She wanted to make sure he was worthy. No problem, he would send one of his finest Asuras Dharmalochana, with say a small regiment of 60,000 troops. That should be enough to abduct a lady even if she rode a tiger.
He was not prepared for what happened next. Ambika was calmly sitting on a rock, her tiger also calmly sitting near her. 60,000 troops led by Dharmalochana arrived. Ambika simply snapped her fingers, and just like that 60000 troops and Dharmalochana evaporated.
Chanda and Munda were standing with dropped jaws. They seemed frozen in place, and only Shumba’s scream from Munda’s phone spurred them into action.
The Asura king was yelling at them to bring her to him immediately. To drag her by the hair.
That last comment, which Ambika heard infuriated her. She was playing by the rules. So far she hadn’t even touched any of the Asuras. How dare they even attempt to lay a finger on her. And her hair? She had just had it styled. This was not going to end well for Chanda and Munda.
As she was thinking this a figure burst forth, from within Ambika. This was Kali. Kali embodied Parvati/Durga/Ambika’s anger and that explained why she looked so ready for …. violence.
Chanda and Munda didn’t stand a chance. Kali sliced off their heads before they even had the chance to raise their eyebrows. It’s possible that Shumbha wouldn’t even have known what had happened to the pair. But as it happens, they were live on a video call with their master.
Shumba was angry. And thirsting for revenge. He summoned Raktabeej.
When Raktabeej arrived, Shumba was glad to see his trusted Ace, his trump card. “I’m so done with this lady. No more Mr. Nice Guy”
“Why, what happened to him?” asked Rakhtabheej
“Oh you’re talking about my butler. Yeah, Mr. Guy resigned. He’s moved on to become a Butler at some Dev’s house. I offered him a retention bonus, but I think he just wanted a better gig. He’s not around anymore. Anyway, when I said No more Mr. Nice Guy I was using the expression. I’m not going to hold back any longer. So Raktabeej, go destroy Parvati and any more avatars she throws at you”
Being asked to murder the wife of the Destoryer of the Universe should have made even the bravest assassin hesitate a little. But if Raktabeej had any apprehension he didn’t show it.
“Yeah, no problem. Are you going for something subtle? I can make it look like an accident. Mind you, there’s a 25% surcharge for that”
But Shumbha didn’t care if it looked like an accident. He wasn’t worried about retaliation from Shiva, thanks to his superpowers from Brahma. He preferred to avoid the surcharge and recommended a direct attack.
Raktabeej rode his horse and set out for the Himalayas where Parvati/Durga/Ambika/Kali/Chandika and anyone else was hanging out.
He was alone.
The Goddess he spotted first was Durga. Raktabeej approached her single handed. He hadn’t even drawn his sword.
“Is this guy bold or foolish or what?” asked Durga.
“I can’t get a read on him,” her tiger replied. “Normally, enemies are either attacking us, or running away. I never had someone walk up before ”
Something was wrong with this picture, but Durga couldn’t figure out what.
Raktabeej was smiling.
“Maybe he’s trying to make friends. Maybe Shumbha wants to call a truce” the Tiger suggested.
But Durga dismissed it almost immediately. “Evil grin, murderous expression on face, and the empty bodybag he’s carrying that says “Reserved for Durga”. I think otherwise”
Or maybe he was just not smart, Durga thought as she lazily swung her sword and sliced the Asura. But she was about to find out how wrong she was.
Whatever was left of Raktabeej collapsed, and a substantial amount of blood spread in all directions.
“That was too easy,” said Durga. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had gone horribly horribly wrong.
And then suddenly it all made sense. You remember how I told you there are 4 characters in today’s show who have superpowers from Brahma? Well, we already met 3 of them. Raktabeej was the fourth.
His superpower was a little different from the other three. And that became apparent to Durga and her tiger as the ground began shaking. Suddenly thousands of copies of Raktabeej appeared all around her. Every drop of Raktabeej that touched the ground, had become a new Raktabeej. This was the worst nightmare. As thousands of Raktabeejs advanced on her, Durga had a major problem on all of her 8 hands. She realized almost immediately that this situation was quickly going to become unwinnable. It was frustrating. The Asurs seemed like they might win, not by force, but by simply existing in much greater numbers than everyone else. This was the earliest version of a denial of service attack that has become all too familiar in this internet age. Except these Asuras were going to starve everyone else of actual tangible physical resources.
It wasn’t that Raktabeej was a fighter. Quite the contrary. An individual Rakhtabheej seemed to be a pushover. But when they were gathered like that, sheer numbers would prevent them from falling over. It would be a struggle to avoid accidentally creating more Raktabeejs. Durga’s tiger in his rush to break free of the mob, accidentally scratched his claw against one of the clones in front of him. “Oops, sorry!” said the tiger. But the damage was down. A few more drops of blood hit the ground and a bunch more clones popped up.
“It’s an interesting theory” said the Tiger when they had broken free and moved off to a distance. “Each clone seems to have inherited all the knowledge and skills of the original. Does that mean every single drop of blood has a complete copy of everything in the Asura body, the brain, the medical history”
“What we want is some way to not make any more clones. We have to destroy those millions of Raktabeej without letting a single drop of blood hit the ground. And why just blood, maybe it’ll happen with hair, or any other part of the body”
They were still trying to figure out a strategy, when the solution appeared on the scene. It was Kali. Kali was still in a furious rage, and she was absolutely decimating what was left of Chanda and Munda. Kali and Durga locked eyes. And that was all it took for Kali to know what she was dealing with. They were both aspects of the same Goddess – Parvati, so this kind of telepathy should hardly surprise anyone.
Kali jumped right into the middle of the mob. Raktabeejs were stumbling against themselves. attacked himself. But Kali was swift and brutal. The scene is to gory to describe, but the short version is that Kali extended her tongue and spread it out all over the ground like a carpet. With her very open mouth she quickly devoured as many of the Raktabeejs as she could. The Raktabeejs that remained realized a moment too late that Kali was devouring them faster than they were growing, now that she had cut off their access to the ground. Desperately they started cutting each other and trying to spill blood as far and wide as possible.
But Kali was far too quick for them. She devoured every last Raktabeej. And she seemed hungry for more. There was a murderous rage in her eyes. And she was dancing a passionate dance. Shiva, who so far had sat out the battle, thought it wise to intervene at this point. Given the crazy superpowers his opponents he would not have helped much if he had intervened earlier.
Shiva stepped right up and lay down in Kali’s path.
Kali stepped on her Shiva and stopped. She immediately calmed down. That was the effect Shiva had hoped to have on this aspect of Parvati. And it worked. Kali was significantly calmer after that. And she didn’t insist on eating any more Asuras. At least not for the rest of the day.
Shumba and Nishumba seethed in fury back in Svarg. Their ace, their trump card was beaten. They were not going to win this. But that didn’t mean they weren’t going to try. At a minimum, they decided they were going to destroy Parvati.
Whether they actually did or not, is not a surprise, given Parvati’s still around. But their fight with Parvati is a separate story by itself. Something we’ll try to cover in a future episode.
That’s all for now
Some notes on the show
We have met Kali before on this podcast. That was in Episode 19.
Kali is often depicted as I described. She’s shown with unkempt hair, wearing a skirt of human arms and a garland of human heads. Her tongue is hanging out, and it is fully red. Evidence that she indeed absorbed every drop of Raktabeej’s blood.
Her red tongue was what the Rolling Stones adapted as a logo. And earlier, the Beatles had made a movie called Help! A major theme of the movie is a cult that worships a Goddess very similar to Kali. This Goddess demands a sacrifice of blood.
A Kali-worshiping cult also appears in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. But the Kali depiction isn’t the only thing that’s inaccurate in the movie. Especially if you’re an Indian it’s very likely more than one scene will make you cringe, especially the dinner scene that takes a very inaccurate view of Indian cuisine. Enough that I’d have to agree with one movie critic who said the real villain in that movie wasn’t Amrish Puri, but the director, Steven Spielberg himself.
Proud to announce that this show was ranked the number 1 podcast for Indian Mythology amongst Indian listeners. Thank you all so much for your feedback and support!
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll cover another story by listener request. It’s another story from the Singhasan Battisi. This is a story from amongst 32 stories that were told to Raja Bhoja as he attempted to sit on King Vikramaditya’s throne. The narrator of these stories were actually part of the decorations on the elaborate throne. The purpose of the stories was to challenge Bhoja – was he worthy of sitting on the mighty throne? We’ll see what Bhoja concludes when he’s heard the next story.