Kali the most intoxicating personifications of primal energy in the cosmic drama, is the object of fervent devotion in tantric forms of worship. She is a power-symbol embodying the unity of the transcendental. She makes her official debut c.AD 400 in the Devi Mahatmya. She is said to have emanated from the brow of Durga during one of the battles between the divine and the dark forces. Kali is considered the 'forceful' form of the Great Goddess Durga.

The name Kali has been used generically from antiquity. That the different manifestations are for a certain definite purpose, and in reality there is one Devi who assumes various from to full filll various purposes. At times she assumes a frightening form and sometimes a benevolent form.

The image of Kali is generally represented as black, just as all colours disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in her (Mahanirvana Tantra). In tantric rituals she is described as garbed in space, sky-glad (digambari). In her absolute, primordial nakedness she is free from all covering of illusion.

She is nature (Prakriti) stripped of clothes. She is full-breasted; her motherhood is a ceaseless creation. She gives birth to the cosmos parthenogenetically , as she contains the male principle within herself. Her disheveled hair (elokeshi) forms a curtain of illusion, the fabric of space-time which organizes matter out of the chaotic sea of quantum- foam. Her garland of fifty human heads, each representing one of the fifty letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, symbolizes the repository of knowledge and wisdom, and also represents the fifty fundamental vibrations in the universe.

She wears girdle of human hands - hands are the principal instruments of work and so signify the action of Karma or accumulated deeds, constantly reminding us that ultimate freedom is to be attained as the fruit of karmic action. Her three eyes indicates the past, present and future. Her white teeth, symbolic of sattva, the translucent intelligence stuff, hold back her lolling tongue which is red, representing rajas, the activating quality of nature leading downwards to tamas, inertia. Kali has four hands (or, occasionally two, six or eight).

One left had holds a severed head, indicating the annihilation of ego-bound evil force, and the other carries the sword of physical extermination with which she cuts the thread of bondage. One right hand gestures to dispel fear and the other exhorts to spiritual strength. In this form she is changeless, limitless primordial power, acting in the great drama, awakening the unmanifest Siva beneath her feet.