Meaning and elaboration
Meaning: The Great One who exists as the seventeenfold reality and the seven-layered universe, while also transcending them.
Elaboration
Maha-Sapta-Dashhichaiva is a many-layered name that reveals Mahakali's cosmic vastness. It may be understood through "Maha" (Great), "Sapta-Dashi" (seventeen, literally "seven and ten"), and "Chaiva" ("and also" or "indeed"). The name shows her as present within the ordered forms of the cosmos while never being confined by any of them.
The Seventeen Forms (Sapta-Dashi) This points to a specific enumeration within Tantric cosmology, especially in Kali Kula traditions, where Kali appears in seventeen principal forms or aspects. These forms express her many powers and functions in creation, preservation, and dissolution. Some reveal her as the fierce destroyer of ignorance, while others show her as the giver of knowledge, grace, and liberation. In this sense, the name affirms that the one supreme Kali is the source and totality of many divine manifestations.
The Seven-Layered Universe (Sapta-Loka/Sapta-Patala) "Sapta" also refers to the seven cosmic planes or realms, both celestial (Sapta-Loka) and lower (Sapta-Patala), that together make up the universe. Maha-Sapta-Dashhichaiva implies that she not only pervades these seven layers but also stands beyond them. Every realm, dimension, and level of existence arises in her power, abides in it, and dissolves back into it. She is thus the fabric and substratum of creation itself.
Transcendence and Immanence "Maha" emphasizes her supreme reality. Though she appears as the seventeen forms and pervades the seven layers, she is never exhausted by number, category, or cosmological scheme. She is the ground of all being, fully immanent within creation and utterly transcendent beyond it. The name therefore presents Mahakali as the all-encompassing reality that holds both the microcosm and the macrocosm within her infinite being.