Kalaratri Mantra
ॐ देवी कालरात्र्यै नमःIn Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English — with the meaning of every word, and the one syllable most people pronounce wrongly.
Who Kalaratri is
Kalaratri is the seventh of the Navadurgas, the night-of-time goddess whose skin is dark as the dissolving kalpa and whose hair falls unbound like storm cloud. She is the form who rides a donkey, holds the iron thorn and the cleaver, and is propitiated on the seventh night of Sharada Navaratri. Unlike gentler Parvati forms she is invoked as the power that ends the asura’s lease on fear itself. The Navadurga sequence, listed in the Devi Kavacham recited with the Chandi Path, places her after Katyayani and before Mahagauri, marking the turn from battle fury toward the quiet that follows annihilation. Her name joins kāla, destructive time, with rātri, the night in which all forms are reabsorbed.
The seventh night of Navaratri
The Navadurga sequence, listed in the Devi Kavacham that is recited with the Chandi Path and attributed to the Varaha Purana, names Kalaratri seventh, after Katyayani and before Mahagauri. The Devi Mahatmya itself contains no such list, though it uses kālarātri, the night of time, as an epithet of the goddess (1.78). In her Navadurga form she takes her most terrible night-body: complexion of the void, dishevelled hair, garland of lightning, mounted on a donkey. Her worship is fixed to the seventh night of Sharada Navaratri, the darkest point of the nine-night cycle. After her night the eighth can open to Mahagauri’s clarity. Her place in the sequence is therefore the liturgical hinge of Navaratri, the necessary night that makes the following dawn possible.
The mantra, in six scripts
The name mantra, and the form most devotees chant daily. No initiation is required — it is open to anyone, including a parent chanting for a child.
- ॐ
- oṃ — the primal sound
- देवी
- devī — goddess
- कालरात्र्यै
- kālarātryai — to the night of time
- नमः
- namaḥ — salutation
The syllable people get wrong
The compound kālarātryai begins with a long kā and places stress on the second long ā of rā; speakers frequently shorten both to ka-la-ra-tri-yai and turn the final tryai into a light tri. Correct pronunciation holds each long ā and sounds the t of the tryai cluster as a dental, with the tongue against the upper teeth, then passes through r and the palatal glide y into the dative ending.
When Kalaratri is chanted
Weekday. Friday
Festival. The seventh night of Sharada Navaratri, dedicated to Kalaratri
Questions
Have your chart read before you decide
Chanting is yours to do, and free. But which deity your situation calls for — and whether a mantra alone is the right response — depends on your chart. Sometimes it is; sometimes it is not.
- Over 30 years in the Guru–Sishya Parampara, from the age of five
- He reads every chart himself — 60 minutes, one to one, never delegated
- Charts are read only between sunrise and sunset, following tradition
Related
Chanting is yours to do. Some things are performed for you.
Where a matter carries real weight, devotees sponsor the homa alongside their own practice. Performed for you and any family members you name, at our Yagna Ashram, in your name and gotra, on a muhurta calculated from your chart, and telecast live so you can watch it done for you.