Mahakali

Mahakali (Sanskrit: Mahākālī, Devanagari: महाकाली), literally translated as Great Kali, is the Hindu Goddess of time and death, considered to be the consort of Shiva the God of consciousness, and as the basis of Reality (see below) and existence. Mahakali in Sanskrit is etymologically the feminized variant of Mahakala or Great Time (which is interpreted also as Death), an epithet of the God Shiva in Hinduism. Mahakali is greater form of the Goddess beyond time, Kali, who is the force of the anger of Durga and is an aspect of the Adi parashakti and therefore her color is light blue. She is believed to be the greatest aspect of Kali whom many Hindus hold as a Divine Mother.

Mahakali's mythology is contained in various Puranic and Tantric Hindu Scriptures (Shastra), where She is variously portrayed as the Adi-Shakti or Primeval Force of the Universe, identical with the Ultimate Reality or Brahman, the (female) Prakriti or World as opposed to the (male) Purusha or Consciousness, or as one of three manifestations of Mahadevi (The Great Goddess) that represent the three Gunas or attributes in Samkhya philosophy; in this interpretation Mahakali represents Tamas or the force of inertia. A common understanding of the Durga Saptashati or Chandi Path (the Devi Mahatmya or "Greatness of the Goddess", a later interpolation into the Markandeya Purana, considered a core text of Shaktism, the branch of Hinduism which considers Devi to be the highest aspect of Godhead) assigns a different form of the Goddess (Mahasaraswati, Mahalakshmi, and Mahakali) to each of the three episodes therein.