Kalighat Kali Temple
— a black stone face with a gold tongue.
Not only on a wall.
“One of the 51 Shakti Peethas of Hindu tradition, on the bank of the Adi Ganga in south Kolkata. The present temple has stood since 1809. Inside, the goddess is a black stone face with three eyes and an outstretched tongue of beaten gold. The city's name, Kolkata, descends from Kalighat. Mornings begin before sunrise; the queue forms in the dark.
Kalighat Kali Temple, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Kalighat Kali Mandir stands on the east bank of the Adi Ganga, an old channel of the Hooghly, in south Kolkata's Kalighat neighbourhood. It is one of the 51 Shakti Peethas of Hindu Shakta tradition; the right toe of the goddess Sati is said to have fallen here. The present temple, a Bengali atchala-style brick building roughly 30 metres on a side, was completed in 1809 with patronage from the Sabarna Roy Choudhury family of Barisha. The toponym Kalighat is the older form from which the English name Calcutta and the modern Kolkata both descend.
The sanctum holds the temple's main image: a black stone face of the goddess Kali, with three eyes, four hands of beaten silver, and an outstretched tongue of beaten gold. The image is not a full sculpture but a face, dressed each day in fresh red and gold cloth. Two earlier shrines on the site were lost over the centuries; the present structure is the third, raised in 1809 by Kashinath Roy and his family of zamindars. The temple's lower walls carry Bengali terracotta panels in the late-medieval Kalighat style.
The temple opens before dawn for the mangal aarti and closes near midnight, with a brief midday rest. The busiest periods of the year are Kali Puja, on the new moon of Kartik in October or November, and the four nights of Durga Puja in autumn. Goats are still offered to the goddess on most days; the bali area is to the side of the sanctum. The Kalighat station on Kolkata Metro Line 1 is a few minutes' walk south, and Mother Teresa's Nirmal Hriday home stands beside the temple compound.