Kalighat Kali Inside the Temple

Kalighat, its markets and the iconic Kali temple have been fundamentally associated with Calcutta’s Pat tradition. The area around the temple was the ideal location for businesses to develop due to the constant influx of people, and therefore housed many artist-studios. Unlike the expanded temple complex that exists now, the original shrine was much smaller in size, whose sanctum sanctorum is replicated crudely in this image. It tries to represent the atchala (eight-panelled) architecture of the double-roof—one large and another small, each having four sloping sides. The English inscription on the top-left corner defines the illustration: ‘This is a picture of the Kali of Kalighat. This temple is also a likeness of the Kalighat temple.’