common name, pan(“drinking”). The
nut turns the saliva a bright red color,
which is the reason for the distinctive
crimson smears adorning many Indian
buildings. Chewing betel is widely
believed to be good for the digestive
tract, a genuine concern in a country
where intestinal upsets are still quite
common. Chewing betel is such a
deeply embedded part of sophisticated
Indian cultural life that it even has its
own aesthetic, and folding betel is one
of the sixty-four arts mentioned in the
Kama Sutra.
Bhadrakali
(from bhadra, meaning “blessed” in
Sanskrit) In Hindu mythology, the epithet
of a powerful and terrifying form of the
Goddess. According to one version of the
story, Bhadrakali’s birthis associated with
the death of Shiva’sfirst wife, Sati. Sati goes
to a great sacrificesponsored by her father,
Daksha. When Daksha intentionally and
publicly insults her husband Shiva, in her
anger and shame, Sati immolates herself in
the sacrificial fire. When Shiva learns of
Sati’s death, he is so enraged that he plucks
two matted locks (jata) from his head and
dashes them to the ground. The first takes
form as Virabhadra, a wrathful and terrify-
ing form of Shiva, and the second takes
form as Bhadrakali. Just as Virabhadra
represents Shiva’s destructive aspect,
Bhadrakali symbolizes the ferocious and
dangerous side of the Goddess, in contrast
with the gentle and loyal Sati. Shiva orders
the two to destroy Daksha’s sacrifice, which
they do with great abandon.
Bhadrakali also appears in the stories
connected with the birth of the god
Krishna. While Krishna is developing in
his mother, Devaki’s, womb, Bhadrakali
enters the womb of Krishna’s foster
mother, Yashoda. The two children are
born on the same night, and under cover
of darkness they are switched with one
another. The next morning the baby girl is
snatched from Devaki by her stepbrother,
Kamsa, the wicked king of Mathura, who
dashes out the child’s brains on a rock;
this is just as he has done with Devaki’s six
other children because it has been fore-
told that one of them will kill him. From
the infant’s corpsearises an eight-armed
figure of the Goddess, who taunts Kamsa
that his destroyer has already escaped
and then disappears.Bhadrakali
Betel nuts wrapped in a leaf. These nuts are taken from acacia palm trees,
dried, wrapped in betel leaves, and chewed to aid digestion.