The following is an excerpt from Āchāryaji’s The Language of Images, pp. 99-102. The Twelve Kālīs were discussed in Session 9 - Śāktopāya - Part two.

The significance of twelve Kālīs can be summarized in the following lines, relying on the depiction given by Abhinava and other contemporaneous Krama philosophers: [Note: This is a brief summary of Abhinava’s presentation of twelve Kālīs in the fourth chapter of Tantrāloka.]

1. Sṛṣṭi-Kālī, creation of the external. She manifests as pure consciousness with the first throb of creation; the world-to-be shines within consciousness-in-itself.

2. Rakta-Kālī, sustenance of the external. She signifies the manifestation of pure consciousness as the means of cognition, being colored by external objects. This is the duration of entities in consciousness.

3. Sthitināśa-Kālī, retrieval of the external. She stands for the introverted orientation of consciousness withdrawn from objects and returned to its essential form.

4. Yama-Kālī, the speechless state relating to the experience of the external. She depicts the subjective and thus confined (from the root √yam) consciousness and its manifestation as the means of cognition.

5. Saṃhāra-Kālī, creation state of the cognitive process (pramāṇa). She signifies the disappearance of externality as related to the means of cognition, absorbing them within pure consciousness. This state is described in terms of creation inherent to the means of cognition (TĀ 3.168). While in Sthitināśa-Kālī, there is an awareness of the distinction between subject and the content of awareness. Saṃhāra-Kālī denotes the awareness of the identity.

6. Mṛtyu-Kālī, sustenance of pramāṇa. She indicates the state in which there is total dissolution of externality, absorbing even Saṃhāra-Kālī. In this, the externals are realized as identical to awareness-itself. This indicates the existence of the means of cognition, as it is in this state that pramāṇa rests on the subject.

7. Bhadrakālī or Rudrakālī, absorption of pramāṇa. She signifies the dissolved (√drā) state of externality wherein pure consciousness gives rise to a definite object. This form delineates habitual energies, memory traces, judgment, and the rise of moral sense.

8. Mārtaṇḍa-Kālī, the speechless state relating to pramāṇa. She signifies the flow of sensory faculties, including the mind and intellect, to the I-sense. Twelve sensory faculties parallel the twelve aspects of the sun.

9. Paramārka-Kālī, creation state of the subject (pramātṛ). She and the rest in this sequence absorb the confined subjective state. This state signifies the creativity inherent to the subject through merging ego-sense with pure consciousness.

10. Kālānalarudra-Kālī, sustenance state of the subject. She indicates the state of pure consciousness when it identifies the individual self with the cosmic self. She, thus, allows the individual selves to rest in unitary consciousness, as ‘I am all this.’ This is the determinant form of collective consciousness.

11. Mahākāla-Kālī, reabsorbed state of the subject. Mahākāla stands for the experience, ‘I am all this.’ This awareness withdraws to the one that is free from the sense of ‘this.’ In this experience, the self is all that is there, as the sense of the external vanishes. This is the state of pure consciousness free from externality.

12. Mahābhairavacaṇḍograghora-Kālī, speechless state of the subject. Since this state defies language, it is called ‘nameless’ (anākhyā). It is merely the reflexive aspect of awareness-in-itself, and is free from all relations.