Kalaratri Ji

Kalaratri is the seventh, and fiercest, of the Navadurga: a dark "goddess of the night" whose very appearance is said to put demons, ghosts and negative energies to flight, while granting her devotees fearlessness, an inversion captured in her alternate name, Shubankari, "the auspicious one."

Her name joins kala (time, and by extension black) and ratri (night). She is also called Shubankari, Raudri and Dhumorna. Her name is often used interchangeably with Kali in popular usage, though some sources treat the two as distinct figures. She is named in the Mahabharata's Sauptika Parva, and explicitly invoked as an epithet of Devi in the Devi Mahatmya itself (Durga Saptashati 1.75): "You are the dark might of dissolution, the great night of final dissolution, and the terrible night of delusion."

She is shown dark-complexioned, three-eyed with eyes said to emit flashes like lightning, dishevelled hair, and flames issuing from her nostrils in battle. She has four hands, two in the varada and abhaya mudras and two holding a scimitar and a thunderbolt, wears a garland that shines like the moon, and rides a mule or donkey.

In the Mahabharata's Sauptika Parva, she appears on the battlefield during Ashwatthama's night raid on the sleeping Pandava camp, described as a black-hued figure with a bloody mouth, personifying the horror of war. In the Devi Mahatmya cycle, after the goddess Ambika (Chandika) emerges from Parvati's body to do battle, Parvati's own skin turns dark as a consequence, and she is thereafter also called Kalika and Kalaratri; in this two-armed form, bearing a scimitar and a blood-filled skull cup, she is said to kill the demon king Shumbha. A related telling has her emerge from Chandika's forehead to kill the generals Chanda and Munda, earning the name Chamunda in the process, and drink the self-replicating demon Raktabija's blood to stop his clones from multiplying, before Shiva calms her battle-fury by lying in her path, echoing the widely-known story told of Kali. In a Skanda Purana account, Parvati sends her as a messenger to warn the demon Durgamasura of the coming war, after which Parvati herself kills him and takes the name Durga.

Consort Shiva. Closely associated with, and in several tellings not clearly distinguished from, Kali and Chamunda.

Her worship on Navratri's seventh night is held in special regard by yogis and sadhakas; she is associated with the crown (sahasrara) chakra and is said to grant siddhis (spiritual powers) and nidhis (riches) to devotees.

Named shrines include one in Kalika Galli, near the Annapurna-Vishwanath lane in Varanasi; a temple at Vindhyachal, Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh; one at Dumri Buzurg, Nayagaon, Bihar; and temples at Patiala and Sangrur in Punjab.