City

Kolkata

Also Known As Calcutta The anglicised name, official until 2001.

India

Kolkata's Kalighat temple gives the city its name and is counted among the shakta pithas, drawing the worship of Kali that shapes the religious character of Bengal. Ramakrishna served as a priest at the Dakshineswar Kali temple north of the city, and his disciple Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission at nearby Belur in 1897. The city was also the base of the Brahmo Samaj reform movement and of the Missionaries of Charity, founded there by Mother Teresa in 1950.

Facts

Attributions

Tradition

Shakta worship, at the Kalighat temple and in the Durga Puja that fills the city each autumn; the Brahmo Samaj and the Ramakrishna Mission, both founded here; the Missionaries of Charity, founded in 1950; and Muslim and Christian communities of long standing 3

Site

Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage gathered on a dated festival 2

Traditions

Sacred and Liturgical Languages

Bengali in the devotional songs and the reform literature, with Sanskrit in temple ritual and Arabic in Muslim worship 4

Origins

Founded

Established by the East India Company from 1690 on the Hooghly, and the capital of British India until 1911 1

Learn More

Kali at Kalighat, and the Goddess of Bengal

The city takes its name from Kalighat, the ghat of Kali, and the temple there is counted among the shakta pithas, the sites where a part of the body of Sati is held to have fallen when it was carried across the land by her grieving husband. The portion assigned to this place is the toes of the right foot. The present temple dates from the early nineteenth century, and the image inside is unusual, a black stone face with large silver eyes and a gold tongue rather than a conventional figure.

Bengali devotion to the goddess has a distinctive tone that is easier to show than to define. Ramprasad Sen, writing in the eighteenth century, addresses Kali as a mother who neglects her child, argues with her, scolds her and refuses to be put off, and his songs are still sung. The imagery is uncompromising: a naked black figure garlanded with heads, standing on the body of her husband, who is simultaneously terrifying and the most intimate object of love in the tradition.

Goat sacrifice is performed at Kalighat, which is one of the few major urban temples in India where it continues openly, and it is defended by its practitioners as the offering the goddess herself is understood to receive. Kalighat also gave its name to a school of bold, cheap watercolour painting sold to pilgrims in the nineteenth century, which later influenced modern Indian art and is now collected in museums.

Reformers, Ramakrishna, and the Missionaries of Charity

Calcutta was where Hinduism argued with itself in public in the nineteenth century. Rammohan Roy founded the Brahmo Samaj in the city in 1828, arguing from the Upanishads for a formless God, rejecting image worship and caste, and campaigning against the burning of widows. The movement split and split again over how far to go, and it shaped a generation of Bengali public life out of all proportion to its numbers.

Into that setting came Ramakrishna, a priest at the Dakshineswar Kali temple north of the city from the 1850s, who was almost the opposite of a reformer: an ecstatic devotee of the goddess, largely unlettered, who undertook the disciplines of other traditions in turn and reported that they reached the same destination. His conversations, recorded verbatim by a schoolmaster who visited him for years, are a rare thing in religious literature, a day by day transcript of a teacher talking. His disciple Vivekananda took that message abroad and founded the Ramakrishna Mission at Belur in 1897, giving a Hindu monastic order a programme of famine relief, hospitals and schools; its temple is designed so that its silhouette reads as temple, church and mosque together.

In 1950 Mother Teresa began the Missionaries of Charity in the same city, opening a home for the dying beside the Kalighat temple. The order spread worldwide and she was canonised in 2016. Criticism of the medical standard of care in her homes and of her positions on suffering has been sustained and is part of the record.

Connections

Associated With

About MBSI (Maha Bodhi Society of India, Own Website)

This source names Kolkata directly: "its present-day work from its Kolkata headquarters, with centres at Buddhagaya, Sarnath, Lumbini, New Delhi, Bhubaneswar, Nowgarh and Lucknow offering pilgrim services alongside charitable and..."

Source About MBSI (Maha Bodhi Society of India, Own Website)Maha Bodhi Society of India

Arjuna and Bhishma (Victoria and Albert Museum, IS.40-1959)

This source names Kolkata directly: "1890, from Kolkata, showing Arjuna shooting arrows at Bhishma, the Mahabharata's account of Bhishma falling on his bed of arrows at Kurukshetra."

Source Arjuna and Bhishma, museum number IS.40-1959 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Arjuna and Bhishma, museum number IS.40-1959 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

This source names Kolkata directly: "1890, from Kolkata, showing Arjuna shooting arrows at Bhishma, the Mahabharata's account of Bhishma falling on his bed of arrows at Kurukshetra."

Source Arjuna and Bhishma, museum number IS.40-1959 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Bhima and King Virata (Victoria and Albert Museum, IS.38-1959)

This source names Kolkata directly: "and tin alloy on paper, made in Kolkata around 1890 by an unnamed artist of the Kalighat bazaar tradition."

Source Bhima and King Virata, accession IS.38-1959 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Bhima and King Virata, accession IS.38-1959 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

This source names Kolkata directly: "and tin alloy on paper, made in Kolkata around 1890."

Source Bhima and King Virata, accession IS.38-1959 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Durga Puja in Kolkata, Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity

This source names Kolkata directly: "inscription record for Durga Puja in Kolkata, one entry in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, the same continuously maintained official register this atlas also..."

Source Durga Puja in Kolkata, Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of HumanityUNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage

Kali (Victoria and Albert Museum, IM.2:73-1917)

This source names Kolkata directly: "near the Kali temple at Kalighat, Kolkata developed from the mid-nineteenth century, stripping decoration back to just one or two figures against a plain ground for sale to temple pilgrims and..."

Source Kali, IM.2:73-1917 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Kalighat Kali Temple

This source names Kolkata directly: "former channel of the Hooghly River in Kolkata, is counted among the fifty-one Shakti Pithas, the sites where a part of the goddess Sati's body is held to have fallen as her grieving husband carried..."

Source The Sakta PithasD. C. Sircar

Kalighat Painting, Wikipedia

This source names Kolkata directly: "around the Kali temple at Kalighat, Kolkata, in the mid-nineteenth century on mill-made paper, used here to corroborate the style's origin, technique and its early adoption of secular and satirical..."

Source Kalighat Painting, Wikipedia

King Dasaratha (Victoria and Albert Museum, IS.316-1961)

This source names Kolkata directly: "1890, from Kolkata, showing King Dasaratha lying prone attended by three women, the Ramayana's account of Dasaratha, father of Rama, dying of grief after Rama's forced exile."

Source King Dasaratha, museum number IS.316-1961 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

King Dasaratha, museum number IS.316-1961 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Source King Dasaratha, museum number IS.316-1961 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Puran Bhagat (1933 film)

This source names Calcutta directly: "by Debaki Bose for New Theatres Ltd. of Calcutta, his own debut direction in Hindi. It d..."

Source Wikipedia, "Puran Bhagat (1933 film)"Wikipedia contributors

Rama and Lakshmana (Victoria and Albert Museum, IS.32-1959)

This source names Kolkata directly: "1890, from Kolkata, showing Rama and Lakshmana fighting the demon Viravahu, with a handwritten Bengali inscription naming the battle."

Source Rama and Lakshmana, museum number IS.32-1959 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Rama and Lakshmana, museum number IS.32-1959 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

This source names Kolkata directly: "1890, from Kolkata, showing the two brothers fighting the demon Viravahu, with a handwritten Bengali inscription naming the battle."

Source Rama and Lakshmana, museum number IS.32-1959 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Ramakrishna

Ramakrishna served as a priest at the Dakshineswar Kali temple north of the city.

The Founding of the Ramakrishna Mission

Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission at Belur, near Kolkata, in 1897.

Vyasa (Victoria and Albert Museum, IS.360-1961)

This source names Kolkata directly: "and tin alloy on cardboard, Kolkata, ca."

Source Vyasa, accession IS.360-1961 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Vyasa, accession IS.360-1961 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

This source names Kolkata directly: "and tin alloy on cardboard, Kolkata, ca."

Source Vyasa, accession IS.360-1961 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Yudhishthira (Victoria and Albert Museum, IS.272-1961)

This source names Kolkata directly: "and tin alloy on cardboard, Kalighat, Kolkata, ca."

Source Yudhishthira, accession IS.272-1961 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Yudhishthira, accession IS.272-1961 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

This source names Kolkata directly: "and tin alloy on cardboard, Kalighat, Kolkata, ca."

Source Yudhishthira, accession IS.272-1961 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Contained In

India

Sacred To

Kali

The Kalighat temple, which gives the city its name, is counted among the shakta pithas.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)

Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source

2. Durga Puja in Kolkata, Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity

UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2021View the Source

3. Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal

Rachel Fell McDermott, Oxford University Press, 2001

4. The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions

John Bowker (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1997View the Source

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

Mahendranath Gupta; translated by Swami Nikhilananda, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1942

India: A Sacred Geography

Diana L. Eck, Harmony Books, 2012View the Source

Comments (0)

No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.

Reader Challenges (0)

No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

Switch Atlas

The Inner World

The Civil World

The Natural World

Kolkata

Associated With

Contained In

Sacred To