she creates goddesses to help her. One of the goddesses is Kali. Kinsley writes, "Durga becomes angry, her face becoming dark as ink. Suddenly the goddess Kali springs from her forehead." Kali is Durga's rage, fury, and bloodlust unleashed onto the battlefield. "She roars loudly and leaps into battle where she tears demons apart with her hands and crushes them in her jaws." Both goddesses are worshiped by blood and flesh sacrifice. In the mountain regions, Himalayas or the Vindyyas of India, Durga is worshiped with sacrifice. Durga receives meat, blood and alcohol. Pintchman writes, "In this worship she is said to receive (and to enjoy) meat and blood." Devotees sometimes even give her their own flesh, as Kali's devotees do. In the Tantric religion of India her followers worship her with self mutilation, and offerings of their own flesh and blood. I think Durga and Kali are the most ferocious, battling goddesses in Hindu literature. They are both the same yet they are not the same. Durga is exquisite, Kali is repulsive. Shiva is the husband of Durga and Kali is his consort and they both alter him in unlike ways. Durga is the "cosmic queen," Kali is a grotesque beast. Yet, Kali and Durga are one in the same goddess. They both fall outside the image of a "good" Hindu woman, and they both receive blood sacrifices. Durga and Kali's characteristics meld and separate to make a paradox of one another. They are the boldest and brightest (Kali in spirit too) female deities in the Vedic literature. ...
