The Sword, the Blood, the Head. An Inquiry into the Goddess Kālī

Abstract

In her most widespread representations, Kālī brandishes a sickle-bladed sword – a billhook-like implement – with which she beheads the demon Raktabīja (‘blood-seed’, i.e. ‘he who sows blood’). Taking this iconographically stabilised attribute as its point of departure, the present essay dismantles and examines its magico-ritual components, tracing archaic figurations and symbolisms through a wide-ranging, long-term comparative perspective. The enquiry brings into view archetypal images of the unhealable wound and of blood as a substance both ritually shed and endowed with efficacious power, from the Greek myths of Philoctetes and Telephus to the sacred and legendary nexus of the Grail tradition. From these ideological and religious configurations, the study identifies elements of anthropological relevance, while also reopening the discussion onto "other" registers that move beyond hermeneutics towards theosophic horizons and metaphysical inquiry.