Raktabija had a boon that made a battle with him unwinnable: wherever a drop of his blood fell upon the ground, a new Raktabija sprang up, whole and armed. The goddess struck him, and the field filled with him. She struck again, and there were thousands, and the army of the Devi began to be pushed back by an enemy that grew stronger the harder it was fought.

Then from the brow of the goddess, out of her fury, came Kali: gaunt, dark, garlanded with skulls, her tongue out, carrying a skull-bowl and a sword. She did not fight the copies. She spread her tongue across the battlefield and drank each drop of blood before it could reach the earth, and swallowed the multiplying demons whole as they came, until the original Raktabija stood alone and was cut down at last.

But the fury did not stop with the battle. Kali danced upon the field and the ground began to break under her, and the gods, terrified, could not calm her, until Shiva lay down among the dead in her path. She danced on and her foot came down upon her own lord, and she stopped, and her tongue came out in that startled recognition that every image of her still shows.

The Moral

Raktabija is the perfect image of a fault that multiplies each time you strike at it: anger answered with anger, fear fought with fear. He cannot be beaten by force, only by something that refuses to let the blood touch the ground. And Kali’s own halt is the second half of the teaching: the fierce power that saves us must itself be stopped by love, and it stops the instant it recognises what it is standing on.

Read the complete story of Maa Durga, chapter by chapter →