Truth is one  Sages call it by various name - Rigveda 164/46

 

Story about Mother Kali

 

                              According to the 19th.century Saint  Shri Ramakrishna ,the grace of Mother Kali is absolutely necessary to achieve the objectives of life . The followings are the examples of the grace of the divine mother Kali to Her devotees:

                                1. Around first century A.D., an

ignorant and dull cowherd but with remarkable beauty , became the

greatest Sanskrit poet and dramatist KALIDASA[ servant of Kali] due to

the grace of the divine mother Kali..Kalidasa was tricked to marry the

princess of Beneras because of the conspiracy of her father's

councillors but after worshipping the divine mother Kali ,Kalidasa

became one of the nine jewels in the court of King Vikramadyta of

Ujjain. In 1789,Sir William Jones translated Kalidasa's play

"SAKUNTALA" into English  which created so much enthusiasm among the

European Scholars like German Romantic poet Von Goethe and others that

in 19th. century Oxford Professor Max Muller along with others started

to translate all the Vedas,Upanishads,Puranas and almost all the

Sanskrit litterateurs of India.

 

                                  2. Mother Kali accompanied as a

daughter of Tamil mystic poet Veerai Kavi Rajendra of Ramnad to his

pilgrimage to Beneras.

                                      Kavi Rajendra wanted to go on

pilgrimage to Beneras when his daughter wanted  to accompany him. Kavi

persuaded her to stay home with her mother . Kavi Rajendra came out of

his house and walked about a mile ,he saw her daughter was following

him.She told to Kavi that she came out from the back door and will

accompany him to Beneras. Thus Kavi Rajendra spent a year in Beneras

and his daughter cooked,cleaned and served her father well. After a

year Kavi along with his daughter returned home and just before

entering the house the daughter told Kavi that she will enter the

house through the back door. Kavi after coming home talked to his wife

and neighbours when his wife asked him that why Kavi did not ask about

his only daughter. Kavi then said that his daughter was always with

him but when his wife insisted the she did not leave home ,then they

all realised that the divine mother Kali served him as his daughter .

Kavi Rajendra became famous by expressing  the"Saundaryalahari" of

SANKARACARYA into Tamil poetic language.

 

                                  3. At the beginning of the 20th.

century, Sir John Woodroffe , the Chief Justice of Calcutta High

Court, became a devotee of Mother Kali because his family problem was

solved by worshipping mother Kali.Sir Woodroffe learned Sanskrit from

the pandits of Calcutta and translated  into English the Tantric text

"MAHANIRVANA TANTRA" . Moreover ,Sir Woodroffe used pseudonym Arthur

Avalon to write a series of books  on TANTRA and after retirement he

along with his wife promoted the worshipping of the Mother Kali in the

Western world according to Tantra Sharsta.

 

                                  The present image of Mother Kali

was introduced by the Tantric author Krisnananda Agamavagisa in 18th

century. The contemporary well known poet Ramaprasad Sen ,who was a

great devotee of Mother Kali, composed hundred thousand of lyric poems

on Mother Kali and Shri Ramakrishna used to sing some of those songs.

 

                                                        Refs: Barbara

Stoler Miller, "The Plays of Kalidasa",1984,Columbia University press.

 

Nataraja Guru, Saundaryalahari of Sankaracarya1988, East-West

University ,Varkala,India.

 

Arthur Avalon, The Great Liberation[ Mahanirvana Tantra]1913, Ganesh

&Co. Madras-17.

 

 JOY SHRI RAMAKRISHNA

 Ramananda Chatterjee[VSC-president]