Mahakali

Mahakali
Ekamukhi or "One-Faced" Murti of Mahakali displaying ten hands holding the signifiers of various Devas.
Devanagari	महाकाली
Sanskrit transliteration	Mahākālī
Affiliation	Kali, Parvati, Durga, Mahadevi, Tridevi
Abode	Varies by interpretation
Mantra	ॐ क्रीं कालिकायै नमः oṁ krīṁ kālikāyai namaḥ, ॐ कपलिन्यै नमः oṁ kapālinyai namaḥ
Weapon	Varies by iconographic forms
Consort	Mahakala or Shiva

Mahakali (Sanskrit: Mahākālī, Devanagari: महाकाली), literally translated as Great Kali, is the Hindu Goddess of time and death, considered to be the consort of Mahakala the God of consciousness, the basis of Reality and existence. Mahakali in Sanskrit is etymologically the feminized variant of Mahakala or Great Time (which is interpreted also as Death), an epithet of the God Shiva in Hinduism. Mahakali is the form of Adi parashakti, who is beyond time and space. Kali is the force of anger of Adi parashakti and therefore her color is black. She is the greatest aspect of Kali whom many Hindus hold as a Divine Mother.

Mahakali's history is contained in various Puranic and Tantric Hindu Scriptures (Shastra). In these She is variously portrayed as the Adi-Shakti-Goddess Durga, the Primeval Force of the Universe, identical with the Ultimate Reality or Brahman. She is also known as the (female) Prakriti or World as opposed to the (male) Purusha or Consciousness, or as one of three manifestations of Mahadevi Durga (The Great Goddess) that represent the three Gunas or attributes in Samkhya philosophy. In this interpretation Mahakali represents Tamas or the force of inertia. A common understanding of the Devi Mahatmya ("Greatness of the Goddess") text, a later interpolation into the Markandeya Purana, considered a core text of Shaktism (the branch of Hinduism which considers Devi Durga to be the highest aspect of Godhead), assigns a different form of the Goddess (Mahasaraswati, Mahalakshmi, and Mahakali) to each of the three episodes therein.