In Hinduism Kali's three functions are assigned to the gods: Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver; and Shiva, the destroyer. It is noted that Vishnu, who is thought to have brought the world out of the primal abyss, wrote the following about Kali: "Maternal cause of all change, manifestation, and destruction... the whole Universe rests upon Her, rises out of Her and melts into Her. From Her crystallized the original elements and qualities which construct the apparent world. She is both mother and grave... The gods themselves are merely constructs out of Her maternal substance, which is both consciousness and potential joy."
Kali was the Ocean of Blood at the beginning of the world; she might be said to be the primordial mass from which all life arouse; and her ultimate destruction of the universe is prefigured by the destruction of each individual, though her karmic wheel always brought reincarnation. After death came nothing-at-all, which Tantric sages called the third of three states of being; to experience it was like the experience of Dreamless Sleep. This state was also called "the Generative Womb of All, the Beginning and End of Beings." Kali devoured Time, she resumed her "dark formlessness," which appeared in all myths of before-creation and after-doomsday as elemental Chaos.