Chinese Kali Mandir, Tangra, Kolkata加尔各答华人卡莉庙
- Type
- Overseas Daoist Temples
- Location
- India · West Bengal · Tangra, Kolkata · Matheswartala Road, Tangra, Kolkata 700046; a roadside temple
- First built
- the twentieth century · No reliable record of the exact founding date; a Hindu temple managed by the Chinese community
Overview
The Chinese Kali Temple stands beside Matheswartala Road in Tangra, dedicated chiefly to the Hindu goddess Kali and to Shiva, and is managed and maintained by the local Chinese community. Its nature must be honestly noted: this is a Hindu temple, not a Chinese temple or a Daoist institution; it is included here because it is a rare instance of religious syncretism — a Chinese community worshipping the principal deity of the local religion, offering Chinese-style fried noodles as prasad, with worshippers including both ethnic Chinese and Bengalis, and the temple especially busy during the Kali Puja festival. This kind of syncretism belongs to the same lineage as the joint worship of Guandi and Changó in Cuba, the parallel devotion to Catholicism and Guandi among the Chinese of Réunion, and similar phenomena of religious parallelism in Mauritius: when Chinese immigrants lack the resources for a temple of their own tradition, or have engaged in long and deep interaction with local society, they incorporate local deities into their own system of worship rather than abandoning worship altogether. This temple is the most vivid material expression of the localization of South Asian Chinese communities.
Highlights
- Dedicated chiefly to the Hindu goddess Kali and to Shiva
- Managed and maintained by the Chinese community
- Chinese-style fried noodles offered as prasad
- A rare instance of religious syncretism
- A Hindu temple, not a Daoist institution