Poetry Chaikhana Blog

Ivan M. Granger November 19th, 2008

Is my black Mother Syama really black?
by Kamalakanta

English version by Rachel Fell McDermott

Is my black Mother Syama really black?
People say Kali is black,
but my heart doesn’t agree.
If She’s black,
how can She light up the world?
Sometimes my Mother is white,
sometimes yellow, blue, and red.
I cannot fathom Her.
My whole life has passed
                  trying.

It’s easy to see
how Kamalakanta
      thinking these things
went crazy.

— from Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott

/ Photo by alicepopkorn /

Kamalakanta, like Ramprasad, was a saint who addressed his songs to the Bengali goddess Kali. Kali is both loving mother and terrible destroyer, the beginning as well as the end — she is all of creation.

Kali is usually portrayed with black skin — the color of the night, the color of mystery, the color of the formless Void. But here Kamalakanta teasingly declares that she is not black, for she is the radiant source of all light in the universe. One color is not enough for her, for all colors come from her, the endless diversity of material existence emanate from her. Who can fathom such dazzling variety all within one maternal Being?

The lines, “She is Matter, / then Spirit, / then complete Void,” almost sound like a Buddhist formulation. But, of course, such observations don’t belong to any one sacred tradition alone; they are simply the result of direct mystical experience, whatever the religious framework. Matter reveals itself to be an unreal experience of surfaces and appearance. The so-called tangible reality perceived by the senses emerges from a divine and living radiance that “lights up the world.” And at the heart of it all is a profound stillness, an emptiness that swallows everything so completely that all form and separation disappear. Yet, at the same time, that Void is also alive and pregnant with the whole unmanifest universe. This is Kali in her essential (formless) form: the Void that consumes everything and the Womb that gives birth to all of creation — both at once.

Kamalakanta Chakravarti, usually known simply as Kamalakanta, is thought to have been born around the year 1773 in the Bengali district of Burdwan, in India. His father was a Brahmin priest who died when Kamalakanta was still a boy. His mother struggled financially to provide for the family with the meager income from the small amount of land left to them, but she managed to send Kamalakanta to higher education.

Kamalakanta was a bright student, studying Sanskrit and showing an early talent for poetry and music.

It is said that “his heart opened to the love of God” when he received the sacred thread and was initiated into spiritual practice by Chandra Shekhar Goswami.

Kamalakanta’s mother was disturbed to see her teenaged son adopting the air of a renunciate, so she quickly arranged a marriage to a beautiful young woman. Soon after the marriage, however, the woman died. Kamalakanta’s mother found a second wife for her son soon after, and Kamalakanta married again.

Kamalakanta eventually took Tantric initiation from a great Tantric yogi named Kenaram Bhattacharya.

In order to support his family, Kamalakanta started a small school in addition to his work as a Brahmin priest. But Kamalakanta struggled to make ends meet.

Eventually the reputation of the ecstatic Kali-devoted poet came to the attention of Tej Chandra, the Maharaja of Burdwan. The Maharaja asked Kamalakanta to become his guru and appointed him as a court advisor.

With his family’s basic needs now taken care of, he turned more and more deeply to spiritual practice and worship of Kali.

It is said that when Kamalakanta was near death, he asked to be taken to the banks of the Ganges River. Just as he was brought there, an unexpected flood rose up and carried his body away. The Ganges, an expression of the Divine Mother whom he had worshipped all his life, had claimed him as Her own.

There is something wonderfully terrible about the devotion of the great Kali poets, particularly Kamalakanta and Ramprasad. In their poetry and their worship, they are saying, in effect, “Do whatever it takes, Mother, to bring me to you. Shatter me, if you must. Destroy me. I don’t care. So long as you do not withhold yourself!” Such spiritual courage is both frightening and exhilarating to participate in.

More poetry by Kamalakanta

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