KALIGHAT, a village situated on the bank of the old bed of the Ganges, a few miles south of Calcutta, lat. 22° 31' 30" N., long. 88° 23' E. It contains a temple in honour of Kali. Her dead body was carried over the world by her husband Siva, until the corpse was cut in pieces by Vishnu with his sacred disc (siidarsan chakra), and the 52 places where the different parts of the body fell became sacred as places of pilgrimage. One of her fingers is said to have fallen at this spot. The temple was built about the 15th century by a member of the Sabarna Chaudhari family, who allotted 194 acres of land for its maintenance. A Brahman named Chandibar was the first priest appointed to manage the affairs of the shrine ; and his descendants, who have taken the title of Haldai, are the present proprietors. They have amassed great wealth, not so much from the endowments as from the daily offerings made by pilgrims. The principal religions festival of the year is on the second day of the Durga-puja, when the temple is visited by crowds of pilgrims from all parts of the district.
A Kalighat is described by Ward as a landing place on the left bank of the Hoogly at Calcutta, near a temple of Kali, and which gives it name to Calcutta. At Kalighat stands the temple of ali, the energy of Siva in his destructive character o Kal, or Time. To this temple the collected crowds, from miles round the Indian metropolis, pour, like a living stream, and, till recently, exhibiting the most painful self-inflicted tortures, piercing their tongues and hides, and sticking in the wounds heavy pieces of iron, arrows, canes, living snakes, etc. etc., with which they danced with indecent gestures, to the obscene songs of the surrounding multitude. Mr. Ward says that in one year a man thrust his finger through the tongue of another, and they thus proceeded dancing with much indecency together through the streets ; and that another had his breast, arms, and other parts stuck entirely full of pins, as thick as nails or packing-needles.— Ward's Hindoos ; Imp. Gaz.