MandakiniRiver about ten miles from
the village of Guptakashi; the
Mandakini is one of the Himalayan trib-
utaries that combine to create the
Ganges. According to local tradition,
Kalimath is one of the Shakti Pithas, a
network of sites sacred to the Goddess.
Each Shakti Pitha marks the site where a
body part of the dismembered goddess
Satifell to earth, taking form there as a
different goddess. Local sources claim
that Kalimath is the place where Sati’s
vulva fell to earth. It took form there as
the goddess Kali, thus associating a
highly charged female body part with a
powerful and often dangerous form of
the Goddess. The temple’s image of the
Goddess is extremely unusual—a brass
plate a little more than a foot square,
whose center is cut out in a small trian-
gle, an aniconic symbol of the Goddess.
This plate supposedly covers a pit—
a clear symbol of the part of Sati’s body
which is supposed to have fallen
there—but the area under the plate
is deemed so sacred that looking under
it is forbidden.
The claim that Kalimath is the place
where Sati’s vulva fell to earth illustrates
the fluidity of the Indian sacred land-
scape. There is a much more widely
accepted tradition associating this spe-
cific body part with the temple of
Kamakhyain Assam. Such competing
claims are not uncommon in the Indian
sacred landscape, since people often
make these claims to enhance their par-
ticular site’s sanctity and prestige. It is
notable that many Hindus seem little
concerned with such apparent inconsis-
tencies, perhaps stemming from the
conviction that a single Goddess lies
behind all her individual manifesta-
tions. See also pitha.
Kalivarjya
The name for a collection of about fifty-
five acts “to be avoided in the Kali
[Age],” the last age in the cycle of cosmic
timeafter which it is believed the world
will be destroyed and recreated. This
was one of the strategies used by brahmin
scholars to forbid certain religious prac-
tices that were prescribed in the sacred
literature but were no longer acceptable
because of changing ideas. The
Kalivarjya prohibitions first appear in
texts around the twelfth century C.E.
Some of the practices considered
acceptable in earlier times but prohibited
during the Kali age include certain
animal sacrifices prescribed in the
Vedas(the earliest Hindu religious texts)
and suicideby a person suffering from a
terminal illness. For further information
see Pandurang Vaman Kane (trans.), A
History of Dharmasastra, 1968.Kaliya
In Hindu mythology, a thousand-headed
serpent who is defeated by the adoles-
cent god Krishnain one of the earliest
acts foreshadowing the god’s future
greatness. Kaliya has settled into a deep
pool in the Yamuna River, rendering the
pool and its surroundings uninhabitable
because of the noxious poison he
constantly emits. One day as Krishna
and his companions tend the cows,
Krishna decides to get rid of Kaliya.
Despite his friends’ pleas, Krishna
climbs to the top of a tall tree and dives
deep into the pool. A tremendous battle
ensues. Krishna finally subdues Kaliya
by dancing on his hoods, stamping each
of the serpent’s heads until blood runs
out of Kaliya’s mouths. Kaliya’s wives beg
Krishna to spare his life, and Krishna
grants this request but banishes him to a
more appropriate place. His mercy mir-
rors the Hindu world view that even
beings such as Kaliya have a rightful
place in the world. Although problems
arise when such beings are in the wrong
place, these can be corrected by sending
them to a more appropriate one. For fur-
ther elaboration of this idea, See John
Stratton Hawley, “Krishna’s Cosmic
Victories,” in Journal of the American
Academy of Religion, Vol. 47, No. 2, 1979.Kaliya