Kali Puja 2003

Kali Puja is a festival observed according to the Hindu calendar. Its date and customary practices can vary by region and local Panchang.

Kali Puja is celebrated especially in Bengal on the new-moon night of Diwali, honouring the fierce yet compassionate Mother Goddess. In the Devi Mahatmya, a dark, powerful form of the Goddess emerges during the struggle with Chanda and Munda, defeats them and receives the name Chamunda. In another battle Raktabija creates new adversaries wherever drops of his blood reach the ground; Kali prevents them from falling so the Goddess can defeat him. These are separate sacred episodes, not a single event proven to have occurred on one historical night.

Kali's dark complexion, sword, garland and extended tongue have different symbolic readings in Shakta traditions. Her image standing upon Shiva also has several devotional explanations. For many devotees she represents the power to overcome fear, delusion and injustice, not violence for its own sake. Household worship and public pandals developed through Bengal's changing temple and community traditions. Kalighat and Dakshineswar remain important pilgrimage centres.

On Kali Puja night people light lamps, offer prayers, recite mantras and hymns and may keep vigil. Specific practices differ among temples and families and should not be generalized. The appropriate Amavasya at local Nishita or midnight matters for the main worship, rather than simply using a fixed Diwali civil date. Although the lunar night coincides with other Diwali celebrations, Kali Puja maintains its own Shakta meaning.

Kali Puja is valued for devotion, family tradition and the spiritual or seasonal meaning attached to the day.

The puja is at midnight and runs to dawn. Hibiscus, and in many places a goat, though most pandals now offer fruit and sweets. Fourteen lamps are lit the night before and fourteen kinds of green eaten. Kalighat and Dakshineswar do not empty for two days.

Bengal, Assam, Odisha and Tripura, and the Bengali diaspora. Dakshineswar and Kalighat draw the largest crowds of their year. Elsewhere the same night is Lakshmi Puja, and the two are kept side by side in Bengali households that do both.