Kali the Mother
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- Catalogue identifier
- kali-0055
- Alternate titles and import identifiers
- KALI-0055; nivedita_kali_mother_1900
- Author or attribution
- Sister Nivedita (Margaret E. Noble)
- Record type
- Book
- Language
- English
- Date / edition
- 1900
- Source / repository
- Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London
- Access
- Open access
- Subjects
- Kali Library Research Catalogue; Priests, Priestesses, Saints, and Religious Lineages
Description and curator notes
Nivedita's short collection presents Kali through a sequence of essays, devotional meditations, recollections, and literary compositions. Its chapters address religious symbols, Shiva, two saints of Kali, the voice of the Mother, a visit to Dakshineswar, intercession, and an explanation of Kali for a Western child. Vivekananda's poem “Kali the Mother” concludes the volume. The discussion of Shiva interprets Kali's image in relation to divine consciousness and the world, while the temple and saint material situates devotion in the Bengali religious environment familiar to the author. This is an especially useful witness to the presentation of Kali to English-speaking readers around 1900 and to the devotional interpretation associated with the Ramakrishna–Vivekananda circle. It should be read as a committed religious and literary interpretation. The author's suggestions about remote origins and the meaning of symbols do not by themselves establish the historical development of the goddess. The complete volume is preferable to circulating extracts because its differing literary voices and final poem are then preserved in context.
KALI-0055 — Kali Library Research Catalogue.
Access and reliability assessments below are supplied by the curator's 4–5 November 2026 research release, not a new independent verification.
Author / attribution: Sister Nivedita (Margaret E. Noble)
Publication: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London · 1900
London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Ltd., 1900.
Format / language: Historical book / primary devotional or interpretive source · English
Composition / textual history: Late nineteenth-century English essays and poetry collected in 1900.
Identifier: nivedita_kali_mother_1900
Kali relevance: Directly and substantially devoted to Kali; includes the Vivekananda poem in its original book context.
Context: Bengali Shakta devotion interpreted by an Irish disciple of Vivekananda.
Subjects: Priests, Priestesses, Saints, and Religious Lineages
Evidence / reliability: Primary historical source in a freely accessible transcription; historical claims require comparison with modern scholarship.
Access / rights: Complete text checked 2026-11-04. Wikisource identifies the original as public domain; the 1900 book and Nivedita text are out of copyright in the United States. Editorial contributions on Wikisource have their stated licenses.
Source and alternate access links:
Read complete text: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kali_the_Mother_(Nivedita)
Alternate / related form: https://sacred-texts.com/book/kali-the-mother
Source access
Read or locate the original source at Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London
Rights and reading conditions
Complete text checked 2026-11-04. Wikisource identifies the original as public domain; the 1900 book and Nivedita text are out of copyright in the United States. Editorial contributions on Wikisource have their stated licenses. This library links to the source and does not reproduce its full text.
Citation
Sister Nivedita (Margaret E. Noble). Kali the Mother. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London · 1900.
This page supplies catalogue metadata and links. It does not reproduce the underlying source text. Historical, religious, healing and interpretive claims belong to the cited sources, not to an independent verification by this catalogue.