‘Prithak Pranav’, the Krishna-Kali Conundrum: Historical and Literary Complexities of Sectarian Bengal

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper studies historical and literary constructions of deity-figures like Krishna and Kali, and the sects representing them, that is, vaishnavas and tantra-predominant shaktas, in Bengal. While the overarching historical lens posits these deities/sects as radically different, even antagonistic, with syncretic attempts following periods of intense strife; literary archetypes, developed in proximate association with regional philosophy, intuit the most subtle traditions of deity/sectarian equivalence. I focus on three kinds of texts of the early modern period and analyse varieties of divine correspondence represented therein: Krishna-Shiva sharing souls, Kali becoming Krishna, Krishna becoming Kali, Kali-Shiva as the same essential energy, Kali-Krishna sexual union, and this synthesis understood variously as Kali’s/Krishna’s play with herself/himself, etc. These divinities are equated essentially as transformations (prithak) of the original cosmic buzz (AUM/pranav), and complex practices of sonic philosophy ground these equivalent deities within esoteric bodies. These practices and texts thus fuse Kali/Shiva/Krishna, and this tantric-devotional, shakta-vaishnava, prakriti/purusha continuum encompasses a longue-durée ethical habitus including idols, songs, poems, proverbs, theatre, pictures, manuscripts, and bodies. This lifeworld of sacred interchangeability enables, responds to, as well as supersedes historical realities of sectarian difference, opposition, and syncretism, rather than only mirroring immediate temporal concerns. Literary ontology thus nestles and surpasses historical religious constructions in Bengal.