Although many of the earlier poets of Bengali songs were devotees of Kali who followed mystical yogic practices in order to experience the Goddess directly, the lyrics themselves have always been in a colloquial, almost casual vein of language that made them widely popular. Songs to Kali celebrate in ordinary language the role the goddess plays in the devotee's life. They also celebrate her essential role in the universe, a universe which is paradoxically also made up of Herself. The word Shakti - literally Energy, or Power - is the most abstract way of defining or naming the Goddess. A Shakta is a devotee of this power which makes everything move and change. Usually called "mother" in the songs, the great and terrifying deity is brought down to earth in the most intimate of ways. The charming mother-and-child idiom established by poets like Ramprasad Sen and his close contemporary Kamalakanta Chakravarti (d. 1821) attracted many later poets to the genre. Kali songs became widely popular outside religious and courtly settings. The still-current classics among Kali lyrics are from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when poetry was the dominant form of literary art.

Kali songs often reach poetically and playfully into legal and administrative terminology, puns, and trade jargon. Kali devotees are not necessarily renunciants, and worldly concerns commingle with spiritual yearning in the songs. Human inadequacy is often lamented, and protests of the goddess's neglect of her human children abound. The very contrast between earthy metaphors and the goddess's terrific all-powerfulness produces the piquant liveliness of these lyrics. The attributes of the goddess that have made Kali into a cliche' of exotic horror to outsiders are used ironically in the poetic tradition which views her as a beloved, if unusual, mother.

Songs to Kali are an important type of premodern Bengali literature, existing alongside the more voluminous corpus of Vaishnava songs addressed to Krishna and Radha. The term Vaishnava pertains to anything centered on the great god Vishnu, of whom Krishna the sensuous cowherding god is a reincarnation. Radha is Krishna's shy yet passionate lover, and figures prominently as a heroine of this poetic genre. The overpoweringly soft sentimentalism of Vaishnava lyrics seem to have helped determine the atmosphere in which Kali lyrics were composed. Sometimes, there is direct crossover of content from the typically adoring Vaishnava idiom. As Shakta scholars point out, many songs to Kali are catholic in their inclusion of Vaishnava and other religious imagery. Flute-playing Krishna, gentle Radha and other familiars of the mythological world regularly make their appearances in Kali lyrics. Since Krishna is the other dark-skinned god prevalent in Bengal, it may seem natural that he and the goddess be invoked together - but Vaishnava lyrics generally avoid the bloodthirsty goddess. Kali's devotees will sometimes plead with her, in an almost tongue-in-cheek way, to assume the more charming and lovely form of Krishna. Kali's terribleness is as visible to her poets as to anyone else, but they also make extremely familiar - if futile - requests of their "Mother" to abandon the severed human limbs that serve as her garments and wear "nicer clothes."

The selected translations from a historical range of Kali poets have been arranged in roughly chronological order. Traditonally, lyrics in an anthology are arranged thematically, under headings such as "The Devotee's Plea" and "Seeking Shelter At Her Feet." As some of the lyrics are only available in undated anthologies, it is difficult to pinpoint birth - and death - dates for many minor poets. Style and content, however, can serve as a rough guide to the period of composition.

Ramprasad Sen (1720-81) is seen as the originator of the genre of Kali songs as we know them now, and the freshness of the language in later poets is probably due to his example. The lyrics are full of real-world images and objects and an irreverent playfulness between devotee and deity. The contradictions of Kali are often evoked through whimsical puns, alliterations, and home-spun metaphors. Kamalakanta Chakravarti (d.1820), probably born just a few years after Ramprasad Sen, was a serious Shakta practitioner in addition to being a composer of Kali songs. His output seems somewhat more conventionally polished in its imagery and tone, and his songs taken together show the clear influence of the predominant Vaishnava lyrical tradition. Ramdulal Nandi (1785-1851) was the chief minister at the court in Tripura; only a few well-known lyrics by him are still in circulation. He is represented here by a famous song that shows off his knowledge of the religious practices of many of his contemporary ethnic communities.

Trailokyanath Sanyal, Dvijendralal Ray, Nabai Moyra, Bireshvar Chakravarti, and Kalidas Bhattacharya are among a large number of mid-nineteenth century literary types (not necessarily practicing devotees) who adopted the Kali-song genre as one poetic form among the many that they experimented with. While some refined the style to conform to elite urban tastes, others among them appropriated the image of the mother goddess as a nationalist symbol of India. Poetry sung to different kinds of highly developed musical forms was a chief source of entertainment for urban Bengalis in the nineteenth century, and Kali songs entered the general repertoire.

Two great latter-day composers of Kali Songs are Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976). Belonging to the Brahmo sect of anti-iconic reform Hindus, the Nobel Prize-winning Tagore could not be considered a real devotee of Kali by any stretch of the imagination. But passionate about Bengali poetic traditions, Tagore experimented with many of them. He incorporated his own version of Kali songs into new dramatic forms (based on both Indian and Western genres) which included music, dance and dialog. Like many of his contemporaries, Tagore was adept at translating mother-worship into subtly nationalist rallying songs. Kazi Nazrul Islam was an enormously popular and prolific semi-traditional poet of the early twentieth century whose songs have remained in circulation. His lyrics have a modern freshness, which despite his urbane fluency and polish, occasionally reminds us of the first Kali lyricist Ramprasad Sen. The English titles given to the songs in this selection have been created by the translator. Since this is a sung rather than read form in the original, there are no titles and the first line serves as identification. Near the end of each song, a traditional composer mentions himself by name in the third person. Colophons like this are a common feature in most forms of pre-modern Bengali song and poetry, as they kept the name of the composer in circulation in the oral-aural pathways that the songs traveled. The widespread composition of Kali songs has slowed down in recent decades, but the popularity of the established corpus has only increased with the rise of mass media. Songs to Kali are heard on the radio, are distributed on records and tapes, and command a significant niche in the Bengali music market of the 1990's. Known as Shyama Sangit (Songs of the Dark One), or simply as Songs of the Mother among devotees, they show every sign of remaining a fixture in modern South Asian life.

#1 You're A Poor Farmer!

You're A Poor Farmer!
Ramprasad Sen (ca. 1720-1781)(2)

You're a poor farmer, mind of mine!
You've let the precious field of human life
sit fallow too long.
If only you had planted right
a golden crop would be yours by now!
If you had fenced it around
with the name of Ma Kali,
no one could ever seize it from you.
Even the God of Death couldn't smash
the stout barrier of the wild-haired Goddess.
Don't you know it could be confiscated
from under your feet this very moment
or a hundred years hence?
Mind, the ownership rights are still yours -
whisk away the harvest this minute!
The Guru planted the seeds,
but the rain of your devotion
must irrigate the fields.

#2 Mortgaged To Shiva

Mortgaged To Shiva
Ramprasad Sen (3)

What riches will you grant me?
What wealth do you have to give?
Your gracious glance,
or the lotus of your feet?
It's all mortgaged to Shiva!
Is there any hope at all
of getting your feet back from him?*
Kali, try with all your might
to extricate yourself -
what good can it do worshipers
if a holy icon drowns
in its own vessel of offered milk?
Even if you allowed me a share
in the grace of your precious feet,
it wouldn't be worth much
since Father Shiva's exchanged
his very own corpse
for a stake in the same!
But what of the son's right
to a father's wealth?
What will I get of that?
Ramprasad says: I've been labeled
an unworthy son.
My legacy's been snatched.

*To touch the Goddess' feet in supplication is to also receive her blessings. Kali stands on the corpse of her husband Shiva, so in the eyes of the petulant poet, the great "father god" has usurped the "grace of her lotus feet" from the rightful recipient, namely Ramprasad himself.

Always-Blissful Mother
Kamlalakanta Chakrabarti (d. 1820's)(6)

Mother, you're always blissful.
You charmed destructive Shiva.
you dance in your own joy,
and clap your hands to keep time.
O Elemental, Eternal One!
Your form is empty space,
yet the moon adorns your brow.
Where did you get your garland of severed heads,
before the universe came into being?

You are the operator,
and we nothing but machines
that run by your rule.
We stay where you put us,
and say what you make us say.
Cursing you, O Destructive One,
restless Kamalakanta says:
With the sword in your hand
you've slaughtered my faith
together with my disbelief.

#6 Kali the Trickster

Kali the Trickster
Ramdulal Nandi (1785-1851)(7)

Kali, I know that you know
how to play tricks.
You let anyone call you
by any name they choose:
The Magas call you Pharatara,
Europeans call you God;
Mughals and Pathans,
Saiyids and Qazis
all call you Khoda.
Shaktas say you are their Shakti,
Shaivas call you Shiva.
Sauryas think you're the Sun,
and pious Vaishnavas call you
O gracious Radha.
Ganapatyas call you Ganesh,
and Yakshas call you Kuber.
Craftsmen call you Vishvakarma;
boatmen say you're their saint, Badar.
Ramdulal says this is no illusion.
From what comes to pass,
the truth is felt.
Only the mind misbehaves, and takes One God
to be many.

#7 Make Me Crazy, Brahma-filled Mother

Make Me Crazy, Brahma-filled Mother
Trailokyanath Sanyal (1840-1916)(8)

Make me crazy,
O Brahma-filled mother!
I no longer need
my judgment or reason.
Intoxicate me
with the wine of your love!
I no longer have any use for
my judgment or reason.

O Mother who steals her devotees' hearts,
Drown me in an ocean of passion!

In your madhouse,
some laugh, some cry
and some dance with joy.
Jesus, Moses, and Chaitanya*
are all struck senseless
by the weight of your love.
Mother, when will I be blessed
and become one with them?
In heaven your lunatics
gather in a parade,
gurus no better than disciples.
No one understands
the whimsical play of your love!
You too are maddened
and rave impassioned-
Mother, you are
the crowning jewel of the mad!
Make your beggar servant rich
with the same love-madness!

*Chaitanya is the well-known Bengali Vaishnava saint and teacher of the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries.

#8 Clinging To Your Feet

Clinging To Your Feet
Dvijendralal Ray (1867-1913)(9)

I lie clinging to your feet,
but you never look at me, Mother.
You're lost in your own play,
and engrossed in your own emotion.
What is this sport you revel in
across earth, heaven and the underworld?
The entire universe closes its eyes in terror,
and calls out "Mother, Mother!"
while clutching at your feet.
In your hands, Kali, you hold
the world's final destruction.
Under your feet
even the great Shiva
lies unconscious.
Wild laughter issues from your mouth
and streams of blood flow down your limbs.
Tara*, forgiving one, end our fear!

Pick me up like a baby in your arms.
Come shining like a star,
with a smiling face
and in fair dress, like the dawn
after a pitch-black night!
All these days, O Terrible Kali,
I've worshiped only you.
My puja is done, Mother.
Won't you put down your sword?

*The word for star in Bengali is also "tara."

#9 Strike the Pose of Sweet Krishna

Strike the Pose of Sweet Krishna
Nabai Moyra (1872-?)(10)

Strike the bent pose of sweet Krishna
when he dances with the cowherd-girls;
come stand in the shrine
of the heart's temple.
Come show yourself
as the charming crooked one
with Radha at your side.
Take off your skirt of human arms
and put on the yellow dhoti
of the cowherd god.
Put the peacock feather on your head,
and crook one foot over the other.
Abandon your garland of human heads
and put on the garland of forest flowers instead.
Be the Dark Charmer for once,
and not the Black Destroyer.
O woman with heart of stone,
the lotus of my heart blossoms
when it sees the black moon!
Just once, drop the sword
and pick up the bamboo flute!
Fulfill the yearning of the faithful!