Goddess Kālī in a Cemetary  

Goddess Kālī is black and naked. Her face is terrifying. She wears several wreaths of skulls around her neck. Every detail is significant – the snake or nāga that serves her as sacred thread, the thousands of dead hands about her hips, her bloodstained body, the two infant corpses in place of earrings. The Goddess treads upon a naked Śaiva ascetic. He seems to be a Nātha or a Kānphatā yogi, as the huge wooden earrings inserted through the split cartilage of his ears would indicate. He wears nothing but two nāgas, one around his neck the other around his waist. His facial expression is that of spiritual illumination. His third-eye is opened. In his right hand he holds a small damaru or ritual hourglass-shaped Indian drum. The setting is a smouldering śmśāna or "charnel ground." Its blood-soaked soil is littered with a child's severed head and other body parts upon which birds and jackals feed. 

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