Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [165]
Kali When Indiana Jones has to confront the bad guys in The Temple of Doom, he is up against a very evil deity who demands the heart of sacrificial victims. This bloodthirsty Kali is not the product of the fertile imaginations of Hollywood’s Spielberg and Lucas. The goddess Kali, who is known as “the black one,” is the offspring of Durga and another dark avatar of the great goddess Devi.
Kali may be the most horrific of all goddesses—not just in India, but in all world mythology. Born from the forehead of Durga while she is fighting another demon, Raktavija, Kali springs forth to win the battle, destroy the demon, and then drink all of his blood so that it doesn’t fall to earth and produce more demons. (In another version of Kali’s birth, she is said to be the result of Shiva’s teasing his wife Parvati about her dark complexion. In contemplation, Parvati sheds the dark skin, which becomes Kali.)
A goddess of destruction, usually portrayed with a fearsome and grotesque collection of accessories—a necklace of skulls and a belt of severed arms or snakes—Kali is connected to human sacrifice and is often depicted as dancing on Shiva’s sexually aroused corpse. But even in this image of pleasure and pain, there is regeneration. And in the Hindu vision, destruction and creation are two sides of the same coin. When she dances on Shiva’s corpse, Kali actually reanimates him.
Kali also is responsible for a colorful word in English—thug. For centuries, bands of professional assassins in India were known as Thugs—the term derives from the Hindustani word “thag,” meaning a thief—a criminal society in India, whose members committed murder and robbery in honor of Kali.
Krishna An avatar of Vishnu, the dark-blue-skinned Krishna is also worshipped as a god in his own right, and is one of the most popular Hindu gods, a Hindu Heracles. Krishna is often shown with a flute in his hand and his consort, the milkmaid Radha—a manifestation of Vishnu’s wife, Lakshmi—standing at his side.
Krishna is born, in one account, from a single black hair that Vishnu plucks from his head and places in a woman’s womb. Created to rid the world of evil, Krishna battles with a bull-demon, a horse-demon, and Kansa, his uncle, the evil king, who has been told by an oracle that he will be murdered by one of his sister’s children. Kansa decides to kill the children before they harm him, but through an incredibly complex series of events, Krishna and all of the children are saved by the other gods. Still trying to do away with Krishna, King Kansa sends the demon Putana to nurse the newborn with poison milk, but even as a baby, Krishna is unusual. He kills the demon Putana by sucking all the life from her body as he nurses.
As a young man, Krishna is known for his irresistible good looks and virility. In a story that is often depicted in Indian art, he steals the clothes of a group of milkmaids as they are bathing. The women come before him, naked, and bow, and Krishna returns their clothes to them.
The legend of Krishna’s death echoes that of the Greek hero Achilles. As Krishna sits in meditation, a hunter pursuing an antelope sees the soles of the god’s feet and thinks they are an animal’s ears. When the hunter shoots an arrow into Krishna’s foot, he hits a vulnerable spot and kills him—so an Achilles’ heel could also be called a Krishna’s sole.
Lakshmi Wife of Vishnu, Lakshmi is the goddess of good fortune and bestower of wealth. Goddess of perfect beauty, she is born fully formed from the froth of the ocean—just as Aphrodite, the Greek’s ideal beauty, was. Symbolized by the lotus flower—which represents the female principle: the womb, fertility, and life-giving waters—Lakshmi is the personification of maternal benevolence. In very ancient traditions, Indian rulers underwent a symbolic marriage to Lakshmi, just as Mesopotamian kings married Inanna in a rite