Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

This image is the most important part in Kali temples,
and devotees can pray to Kali without a statute. Ma Kali
drinks both Ganga water and coconut milk. The cloth
covers the coconut so that Kali’s water will stay chilled.
The water in the pot is Ganga, it is taken from Ganga
and returned to the river. If Kali requests a meal, then
the devotees give fruit and water to Kali, and they may
drink the water in the pot during rituals and at specific
times. Whatever the devotees are offering to Kali –
water, fruits, or flowers – it is given to Ganga. Twice a
day Kali takes water by the priest’s prayers.
In all temples the most important divine image is not, as
indicated, the statue, but the ghata. Although the priests
emphasise the latter image as the most important,
common people pay the most sincere homage to the
statue. The relations between the two images are
important because the divine spirit resides first and
foremost within the pot consisting of Ganga water
together with the coconut, which is a regenerative
symbol. The coconut consists of five parts; 1) the outer
part of the coconut with the skin/peel corresponds to the
human skin, 2) the hard shell represents the human skull,
3) the inner squash symbolises the human flesh, 4) the
coconut water is identical to the water in the human
body, and 5) the sprout and germ that will grow again
correspond to air. The ghata image includes everything,
and therefore the pot with water, coconut, and cloth is
the most important part of any puja. No living being can
stay alive without water, and the pot of water is an
auspicious and holy place for the goddesses. A plate
with rice or paddy, which is a symbol of Laksmi, is often
placed in front of the ghata.
The spirit or soul is both within the statue and the ghata.
The water in the pot is changed annually together with
the statue, and the goddess’ soul resides in the pot. In
this sense the birth of Kali happens from Ganga. Life
and death start and end in the river, and they form a
unity.
Cemetery of statues – water burials of
goddesses
There are at least three alternative ways in which the
statues may “die” or ways in which the divine spirit
leaves the image. The lives of the statues are removed
ritually prior to the immersion of the image in the river
(Kinsley 1977:viii), but there are exceptions. Sometimes,
as with Shashan Kali, the soul leaves by itself, and the
soul of some Kali manifestations is still alive and within
the statue when it is given to the river. As indicated
earlier, there are two types of temples – temporary and
permanent temples – and there are some four hundred
temporary Kali temples. When statues are replaced
annually in temples the old ones are considered dead –
physically and spiritually – and these statues are
immersed in Ganga. The statues in permanent temples
are also given to the river annually irrespective of the
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type of god or goddess manifest in the statues. Humans
can be buried, burned, or given to the river, and the
statues face the same destiny. However, a water burial is
the most common practice for statues. Besides Binodpur
Ronjit Shah’s Kali temple in Rajbari District there is a
cemetery of statues from temporary temples (fig. 7.16).
When the temples are de-sacralised the statues are
brought to the permanent temple. When the cemetery is
filled with statues they are brought to the river and
immersed. In other permanent temples there are
permanent cemeteries of Kali statues where the mud
statues “die” and disappear by natural processes; they
return to the earth element in a way similar to that of a
human burial.
The Shashan Kali statue is also changed once a year, but
this type of Kali is not immersed in the river (fig. 7.17).
At Ambikapur the Shashan Kali statue was taken out
from the temple the day before the annual Shashan Kali
ritual, which gave “birth” to the new Kali. The old statue
was placed behind the temple at the cemetery where
there were also remnants of other Kali statues. The spirit
of Kali disappeared in the jungle, and the soul started
living a life called the jungle life of Kali. The statue died
“naturally” according to the astrological calendar, and
there was no priest needed to guard or protect the
devotees at the time when Kali’s spirit left the statue.
After leaving the statue, the spirit would roam around in
the jungle, and a divine spirit without a statue may harm
and kill people on its way. The Shama Kali statue used
in the autumn ritual at the cemetery does not die
naturally, and it is therefore immersed in the river. Only
when the spirit is united with Ganga is the statue “dead”,
since the soul is within the statue at the time it is given
to the river. If this statue is placed at the cemetery, or
behind the temple as with the Shashan Kali statues, it is
harmful and dangerous for the people. The Shashan Kali
statue is not dangerous since the soul has gone by itself.
A statue with a spirit is dangerous outside the temple,
and the sacred space is not only for worship, but equally
important, it protects the devotees from divine forces
and ferocious powers.
Water burials have an extraordinary capacity to control
and demarcate the powers of divine spirits, which no
other burial forms have. The immersion normally takes
place one day and the next day the new statue is
replaced. Thus, there is one night without a statue, but
since this absence is a part of the annual Kali ritual there
are no dangers connected to it. But if Kali is absent more
than this one day, it is dangerous because Kali takes
numerous forms and may attack common people.
The process of immersion is, in the words of Eliade, “a
return to the pre-formal, a total regeneration, a new birth,
for immersion means a dissolution of forms, a
reintegration into the formlessness of pre-existence; and
emerging from the water is a repetition of the act of
creation in which form was first experienced”, and he
continues;