Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Monday, September 6, 2010
Dakshinkalistic
The 4th of September we chose to head to Dakshinkali Temple, a sacrificial temple dedicated to the Hindu, bloodthirsty goddess Kali. Kali is one of my favorite Hindu goddesses, so let me give you a little background about her (summarized from the Wiki):
Kali is the representation of eternal energy and eternal time, but also represents constant change. She is a Tantric goddess, which means she is beautiful and young – yet also fierce, dark, and violent. Kali’s name literally translates to “black” both representing this darkness and sense of eternity. In Tantric belief her power extends so far that she is viewed as the creator and destroyer of worlds; the supreme mistress of the universe.
From the Wiki:
“In many sources Kali is praised as the highest reality or greatest of all deities. The Nirvana-tantra says the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva all arise from her like bubbles in the sea, ceaselessly arising and passing away, leaving their original source unchanged.”
Practitioners come to the temple two days a week bringing live animal sacrifices to Kali, which are then slaughtered by the temple priests in the temple proper. The temple was quite crowded; worshippers were everywhere ringing bells to call the gods’ attention and leaving gifts in front of the central images. We were expecting a slaughter, but since it wasn’t festival time there weren’t too many animals being sacrificed. We did get to see some bloodshed, however, when a goat and some chickens were brought to Kali. First we saw the little goats walking around the temple, clueless to their fate. Just a minute later we were able to witness headless baby goats, blood pouring from their bodies, living out their last few seconds. Further inside the temple came the screams from chickens getting their heads sawed off. It was surreal yet eerie how completely normal, even common, these swift public deaths were for the practitioners… while us tourists huddled together watching with wide eyes.
An example of how bloodthirsty Kali can be is in the Hindu story which places her as the ‘Slayer of Raktabija.’ It is said that the goddess Durga was trying to kill the demon Raktabija but was not succeeding. But rather than destroy the demon, as she continues to fight him, he starts to ‘clone’ himself; each drop of blood that falls from him becomes a cloned figure. Durga calls on Kali for help:
From The Devi Mahatmyam (Hindu epic):
“Out of the surface of her (Durga's) forehead, fierce with frown, issued suddenly Kali of terrible countenance, armed with a sword and noose. Bearing the strange khatvanga (skull-topped staff ), decorated with a garland of skulls, clad in a tiger's skin, very appalling owing to her emaciated flesh, with gaping mouth, fearful with her tongue lolling out, having deep reddish eyes, filling the regions of the sky with her roars, falling upon impetuously and slaughtering the great asuras in that army, she devoured those hordes of the foes of the devas.”
Eventually Kali eats the clones and sucks the blood from the demon’s body, thus defeating him. She ends up unintentionally trampling her consort Shiva when she starts to dance on the corpses of the battlefield, pleased with her victory. Realizing her mistake, Kali sticks out her tongue in shame.
Once we had our fill of blood, Henk and I made our way back through the stalls of toys and spices the locals were selling and found our taxi. This driver was seeing quite a lot of us, but using him for the day was really the best deal we could find – and I’m sure he didn’t mind all the work! Our driver had decided to wash his car, so Henk bought us some drinks and a bag of chips to pass the time. Shortly we were on the road again, and after a couple of quick driver-insisted pit-stop at the Sakya Tharig Monastery and the Seshnarayan Temple grounds (which did provide some cool pictures) we headed back to Kathmandu.
We were dropped off at Thamel Chowk to buy some souvenirs, such as a Tibetan flag. I really wanted to get the Simpsons DVD set (of all the series) but many of the stores simply wanted too much money. It was on the 4th that we finally found a woman who would sell the whole set to us for about $12.00 USD – not so bad! Henk and I also picked up some more sodas from the nearby grocery store, along with some cheese and snacks. Finally we picked up some chicken wraps from Or2k, bringing them back to the hostel to eat. Unfortunately I had forgotten the umbrella in the DVD store. It had been raining earlier so we had borrowed an umbrella from the hostel… which Henk now ran back to get from the store. That evening we finally got to watch some more episodes of the Simpsons!
Henk wasn’t feeling too well so rather than leaving Kathmandu for Pokhara the next morning on the 5th, we decided to postpone leaving until the next day so he could have a bit of rest . Even though he did need this rest we soon realized there was a lot of work to be done figuring out our onward tickets out of Nepal and out of India, plus the visas. That day was a Sunday, and we would need the entire next day (a Monday) to drop off the visas in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. (Or so we hoped.) Henk ended up running over to the Indian Embassy the night of the 5th to try and ask some questions (we heard there was a chance in the evenings of getting a ‘fast pass’ for the next morning… thus bypassing the HOURS long line we read about online) but was rudely sent away. Since we had to take care of the visa situation on the 6th, we realized that we wouldn’t be able to leave Kathmandu until the 7th of September. We booked our taxi for the 7th going to Pokhara, deciding that figuring out the visas circumstances was important enough that we should do it before leaving Kathmandu.
The alarm rang pretty early for us on the morning of the 6th, and we arrived at the Indian Embassy around 7:00 AM. We walked up to the gate and found no one else around, so Henk stood near the gate while I waited on some steps nearby. The Embassy didn’t open its gates until 8:30 AM, and the counter until 9:45 AM, so we had quite a long wait. Despite that we were the first two in line at the gate; we didn’t end up first in line by a long shot. There was a Korean girl who ended up ahead of us in line once they opened the gates. While this might not seem like such a big deal, she ended up being a ‘placeholder’ for a tour group of 15+ Koreans! Grrr… which means they all ended up getting their applications processed before we even spoke to anyone. Henk and I had everything filled out, passport photos done the day before, etc. But when we headed up to the counter we were told that we had to wait and come back just a couple days before our flight. They couldn’t process anything for us that day since it wasn’t 15 days before our flight yet. At least the attendant signed his name on our paper, telling us we wouldn’t have to wait in line the day we came back. Having finished that mess, we headed back to the hostel to get our bags sorted and packed.
The next morning we would head out to the rest of Nepal!
Francesca
Kali is the representation of eternal energy and eternal time, but also represents constant change. She is a Tantric goddess, which means she is beautiful and young – yet also fierce, dark, and violent. Kali’s name literally translates to “black” both representing this darkness and sense of eternity. In Tantric belief her power extends so far that she is viewed as the creator and destroyer of worlds; the supreme mistress of the universe.
From the Wiki:
“In many sources Kali is praised as the highest reality or greatest of all deities. The Nirvana-tantra says the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva all arise from her like bubbles in the sea, ceaselessly arising and passing away, leaving their original source unchanged.”
Practitioners come to the temple two days a week bringing live animal sacrifices to Kali, which are then slaughtered by the temple priests in the temple proper. The temple was quite crowded; worshippers were everywhere ringing bells to call the gods’ attention and leaving gifts in front of the central images. We were expecting a slaughter, but since it wasn’t festival time there weren’t too many animals being sacrificed. We did get to see some bloodshed, however, when a goat and some chickens were brought to Kali. First we saw the little goats walking around the temple, clueless to their fate. Just a minute later we were able to witness headless baby goats, blood pouring from their bodies, living out their last few seconds. Further inside the temple came the screams from chickens getting their heads sawed off. It was surreal yet eerie how completely normal, even common, these swift public deaths were for the practitioners… while us tourists huddled together watching with wide eyes.
An example of how bloodthirsty Kali can be is in the Hindu story which places her as the ‘Slayer of Raktabija.’ It is said that the goddess Durga was trying to kill the demon Raktabija but was not succeeding. But rather than destroy the demon, as she continues to fight him, he starts to ‘clone’ himself; each drop of blood that falls from him becomes a cloned figure. Durga calls on Kali for help:
From The Devi Mahatmyam (Hindu epic):
“Out of the surface of her (Durga's) forehead, fierce with frown, issued suddenly Kali of terrible countenance, armed with a sword and noose. Bearing the strange khatvanga (skull-topped staff ), decorated with a garland of skulls, clad in a tiger's skin, very appalling owing to her emaciated flesh, with gaping mouth, fearful with her tongue lolling out, having deep reddish eyes, filling the regions of the sky with her roars, falling upon impetuously and slaughtering the great asuras in that army, she devoured those hordes of the foes of the devas.”
Eventually Kali eats the clones and sucks the blood from the demon’s body, thus defeating him. She ends up unintentionally trampling her consort Shiva when she starts to dance on the corpses of the battlefield, pleased with her victory. Realizing her mistake, Kali sticks out her tongue in shame.
Once we had our fill of blood, Henk and I made our way back through the stalls of toys and spices the locals were selling and found our taxi. This driver was seeing quite a lot of us, but using him for the day was really the best deal we could find – and I’m sure he didn’t mind all the work! Our driver had decided to wash his car, so Henk bought us some drinks and a bag of chips to pass the time. Shortly we were on the road again, and after a couple of quick driver-insisted pit-stop at the Sakya Tharig Monastery and the Seshnarayan Temple grounds (which did provide some cool pictures) we headed back to Kathmandu.
We were dropped off at Thamel Chowk to buy some souvenirs, such as a Tibetan flag. I really wanted to get the Simpsons DVD set (of all the series) but many of the stores simply wanted too much money. It was on the 4th that we finally found a woman who would sell the whole set to us for about $12.00 USD – not so bad! Henk and I also picked up some more sodas from the nearby grocery store, along with some cheese and snacks. Finally we picked up some chicken wraps from Or2k, bringing them back to the hostel to eat. Unfortunately I had forgotten the umbrella in the DVD store. It had been raining earlier so we had borrowed an umbrella from the hostel… which Henk now ran back to get from the store. That evening we finally got to watch some more episodes of the Simpsons!
Henk wasn’t feeling too well so rather than leaving Kathmandu for Pokhara the next morning on the 5th, we decided to postpone leaving until the next day so he could have a bit of rest . Even though he did need this rest we soon realized there was a lot of work to be done figuring out our onward tickets out of Nepal and out of India, plus the visas. That day was a Sunday, and we would need the entire next day (a Monday) to drop off the visas in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. (Or so we hoped.) Henk ended up running over to the Indian Embassy the night of the 5th to try and ask some questions (we heard there was a chance in the evenings of getting a ‘fast pass’ for the next morning… thus bypassing the HOURS long line we read about online) but was rudely sent away. Since we had to take care of the visa situation on the 6th, we realized that we wouldn’t be able to leave Kathmandu until the 7th of September. We booked our taxi for the 7th going to Pokhara, deciding that figuring out the visas circumstances was important enough that we should do it before leaving Kathmandu.
The alarm rang pretty early for us on the morning of the 6th, and we arrived at the Indian Embassy around 7:00 AM. We walked up to the gate and found no one else around, so Henk stood near the gate while I waited on some steps nearby. The Embassy didn’t open its gates until 8:30 AM, and the counter until 9:45 AM, so we had quite a long wait. Despite that we were the first two in line at the gate; we didn’t end up first in line by a long shot. There was a Korean girl who ended up ahead of us in line once they opened the gates. While this might not seem like such a big deal, she ended up being a ‘placeholder’ for a tour group of 15+ Koreans! Grrr… which means they all ended up getting their applications processed before we even spoke to anyone. Henk and I had everything filled out, passport photos done the day before, etc. But when we headed up to the counter we were told that we had to wait and come back just a couple days before our flight. They couldn’t process anything for us that day since it wasn’t 15 days before our flight yet. At least the attendant signed his name on our paper, telling us we wouldn’t have to wait in line the day we came back. Having finished that mess, we headed back to the hostel to get our bags sorted and packed.
The next morning we would head out to the rest of Nepal!
Francesca
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