Maa Kalaratri
Destroyer of ignorance and fear — fierce, yet ever auspicious.
- Vahana
- The donkey
- Bhog (offering)
- Jaggery
- Flower
- Night-blooming jasmine
- Colour
- Royal blue
Significance
Kalaratri is the most frightening of the nine forms and the tradition does not soften her: dark as night, riding a donkey, breathing fire, her hair loose. She is the form that destroyed Raktabija, the demon whose every spilled drop of blood became another of him — she drank the blood before it could fall.
Her other name is Shubhankari, the one who does good, and the pairing is deliberate. The seventh night sits where it does because a practice that has got this far will have turned up what it would rather not look at, and what she destroys at that point is not an external enemy. Two of her four hands are held in blessing throughout.
How she is shown
Dark as night, hair unbound, a noose and a sword; two of four hands in blessing
What is done on this day
Offer jaggery, traditionally given away rather than eaten. This is the night for the removal of fear, and practitioners regard it as the most potent of the nine. Night worship is preferred to daytime.
The nine colours are widely published as if fixed, but they are not — the sequence is assigned from the weekday Navratri begins on, so it shifts every year. The colour shown here is the one most commonly associated with this form; follow your own community's list where it differs.
ॐ देवी कालरात्र्यै नमः