"Encountering Kali" explores one of the most remarkable divinities the world has seen - the Hindu goddess Kali. She is simultaneously understood as a blood-thirsty warrior, a goddess of ritual possession, a Tantric sexual partner, and an all-loving, compassionate Mother. Popular and scholarly interest in her has been on the rise in the West in recent years. Responding to this phenomenon, this volume focuses on the complexities involved in interpreting Kali in both her indigenous South Asian settings and her more recent Western incarnations. Using scriptural history, temple architecture, political violence, feminist and psychoanalytic criticism, autobiographical reflection, and the goddess' recent guises on the Internet, the contributors pose questions relevant to our understanding of Kali, as they illuminate the problems and promises inherent in every act of cross-cultural interpretation.
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments About the Cover Art and Chapter Silhouettes Notes on Transliteration Introducing Kali Studies PART I. KALI IN THE TEXTS AND CONTEXTS OF SOUTH ASIA 1. Kali 2. Kali the Terrific and Her Tests: The Sakta Devotionalism of the Mahabhagavata Purana 3. The Domestication of a Goddess: Carana-tirtha Kalighat, the Mahapitha of Kali 4. Dominating Kali: Hindu Family Values and Tantric Power 5. Kali in a Context of Terror: The Tasks of a Goddess in Sri Lanka's Civil War 6. Kali Mayi: Myth and Reality in a Banaras Ghetto PART II. KALI IN WESTERN SETTINGS, WESTERN DISCOURSES 7. Wrestling with Kali: South Asian and British Constructions of the Dark Goddess 8. "India's Darkest Heart": Kali in the Colonial Imagination 9. Why the Tantrika Is a Hero: Kali in the Psychoanalytic Tradition 10. Doing the Mother's Caribbean Work: On Shakti and Society in Contemporary Trinidad 11. Margins at the Center: Tracing Kali through Time, Space, and Culture 12. Kali's New Frontiers: A Hindu Goddess on the Internet Appendix: Documentary Film and Video Resources for Teaching on Kali and Fierce Goddesses Sarah Caldwell Contributors Select Bibliography Index
