Shiva and his Manifestations

(Different Forms of Bhairava, Vîrabhadra, etc., as Folk

Deities)

Dedicated to the memory of the late

Prof. Günther Dietz Sontheimer
whose extensive fieldwork has greatly enriched our appreciation of the tribal and folk
ancestry of Bhairava,
and who deigned to visit us in brahmanical Banaras only once: for a guided tour of its Bir
Babas
by

Elizabeth Chalier-Visuvalingam

[For the catalogue of an exhibition on Indian folk and tribal bronzes in the
Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum of the City of Cologne entitled]

Mûrti: Embodiment of the Divine

Introduction

Cultural Significance of Bhairava in Hinduism

Brahmâ’s decapitation: the origin myth of Bhairava

Brahmashirashchedaka (Kapâlin), Kankâlamûrti and Bhikshâtanamûrti

Bhairava Kshetrapâla: the divine protector

Bhairavâshtamî and the eight forms of Bhairava

Surrounded by the circle of the Yoginîs: Mârtanda Bhairava

Iconography of Bhairava and Mahâkâla

Vîrabhadra: alter ego of Bhairava

Among the Jainas and Buddhists: Bhairava worship today

The pole and the pot: Bhairava in the primordial cosmogony

The mask of Bhairava: dance and possession

Conclusion

Bibliography
 Like Dionysos for Greek civilization, the savage ‘outsider’ god, Bhairava—the terrible
aspect of Shiva—is perhaps of central significance for Hinduism. The classical iconography of
this tantric divinity par excellence is explicable only through the Purânic origin-myth that
portrays him as a Brahman-slayer. Paradoxically, his public image all over India is above all
that of the stereotyped Kshetrapâla, the divine protector of the human settlement.
Relegating his policing function to eight manifestations—stationed in the eight spatial
directions—Bhairava is still worshipped as the divinized magistrate of Banaras, the holy city
of the Hindus. Their further subdivision into a circle of sixty-four forms, each paired with a
female consort, especially characterizes the cult of the solar Mârtanda-Bhairava, who is
worshipped at their center. Born also of Shiva’s anger, Vîrabhadra often takes the place of
Bhairava in other contexts. His syncretizing worship has penetrated into all the South Asian
religions: Buddhism, Jainism, and even iconoclastic Islam. Despite its decline before the
onslaughts of modernity, we sometimes witness the revival of his worship in unexpected
and curious forms. In Nepal, Bhairava—a late, even ‘tribal’, divinity who is eager to possess
his devotees—continues to play a pivotal role in royal festivals that are nevertheless
modeled on Vedic cosmogony. His living manifestation in human—perhaps his highest—form
is mediated by the (dance-) mask. The iconography of Bhairava is best understood in the
light of the philosophical system of Kashmir Shaivism: the multiplicity of limited forms is the
creative self-embodiment and voluntary self-revelation of the formless divine.

Introduction
The Hindu gods have different manifestations that can be classified as benevolent or
terrible. The images of the god Shiva are generally of five classes namely Samhâramûrti
(destructive), Anugrahamûrti (boon-conferring), Nrttamûrti (dancing), Dakshinâmûrti (the
yogic, musical and philosophical), and other minor aspects. Sometimes Shiva is represented
with the goddess.

Some Purânas describe Shiva with three, four or five faces. The five-faced form of
Shiva found in the Linga Purâna, is identified as Vishvarûpa or the universal form of the
god. These five faces, which also correspond to the five-syllabled mantra ‘Om Nama
Shivâya’, are depicted as follows: 1) Sadyojâta (Mahâdeva), eastern face (western in
the linga), white; 2) Tatpurusha (Nandivaktra), western face (eastern in the linga), yellow;
3) Aghora (Bhairava), southern face, blue like collyrium; 4) Sadâshiva, top face, crystal-
clear, 5) Vâmadeva, north, very fierce and terrible with curved fangs and red moustache.

I shall be concerned here only with the Samhâramûrti (destructive aspects) of Shiva
as Bhairava. According to the Shiva Purâna, Bhairava is the complete form (pûrna-rûpa) of
Shiva because this fearsome image is indicative of transcendence. Bhairava is
‘etymologically’ so called because he protects the universe (bharana), and because he is
terrifying (bhaa). He is also known as Kâla Bhairava, for even Kâla (Time, or the god of
Death) trembles before him; as mardaka because he kills evil-doers; and as Pâpa-
bhakshana because he consumes the sins of his bhaktas or devotees.
 Cultural Significance of Bhairava in Hinduism
Some scholars affirm that Bhairava is a tribal god. They are right, if they mean that
Bhairava played a primordial role in the ‘Hinduization’ of tribal divinities. But this process
was so successful in India that the early stages are almost beyond recognition, at least in
the social organization, even where the tradition affirms explicitly that the god—like the
pan-Hindu Jagannâtha—has a tribal origin. Because of his transgressive essence and his
wild wandering character, Bhairava has been instrumental, through his heretic, outcast,
even criminal adepts, in the Hinduization of local pastoral and tribal divinities, who gradually
came to be identified with one or the other of his varied forms. The late Prof. Sontheimer
has clearly demonstrated this for the Deccan region (Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra)
in the exemplary case of Khandobâ / Mârtanda-Bhairava. As a result, Bhairava has often
two wives, the legal one coming from the settled agricultural or merchant upper-caste
culture, and the mistress, also the favorite, coming from the hunting or gathering tribal
community and retaining all her savage associations.

The essentially black (Kâla-) Bhairava is often split into two opposing yet
complementary forms, black and white (Shveta Bhairava), in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh,
and especially Nepal. There is often little iconographic difference between the two forms,
both of which may be represented by mere aniconic stones. The contrast is primarily ritual
in nature: the (relatively) vegetarian character of the ‘white’ Bhairava being opposed to the
carnivorous ‘black’ Bhairava. In Katmandu, however, imposing images of both are situated
before the royal palace in their respective colors. This ritual contrast, also revealed in the
masked dancers who are their living embodiments in the Navadurgâ-dance of Bhaktapur
(Nepal), also reflects the purification or whitening of Bhairava as he climbs up the ladder of
caste-society. The terrible Rudra, Bhairava’s Vedic predecessor, had similarly been rendered
‘auspicious’ in the form of Shiva. Where other divinities like Vishnu, or especially the
goddess, have been able to play a similar Hinduizing role, it is only by
assuming terrifying forms, like the ‘man-lion’ Narasimha, resembling Bhairava. The goddess
takes a form approaching that of Bhairavî, consort of Bhairava, and the couple, being often
confused in their sex, facilitates the transition even from an aboriginal goddess, like the
wooden post Khambevarî or Stambhevarî, to the purified male Shaiva cult. Bhairava
represents all that terrifies the caste Hindu by violating the fundamental socio-religious
norms that govern his life, and thereby functioned as the natural focus and melting pot for
the assimilation of countless local and regional tribal divinities outside these norms, but
none of whom—not even Potu Râju who has played a similar role in South India—can claim
the pan-Indian, even pan-South Asian, and indeed Brahmanical credentials of Bhairava.

Brahmâ’s decapitation: the origin myth of Bhairava

The thematic sequence of the Hindu iconography of Bhairava derives above all from
his origin myth that I have analyzed elsewhere. In this myth, Brahmâ and Vishnu, the
other two members of the Hindu trinity, were disputing with each other for the status of
supreme God. They appealed to the testimony of the four Vedas, which unanimously
proclaimed Rudra-Shiva as the Ultimate Truth of the universe. But the disputants were
unable to accept that Rudra, endowed with so many revolting symbols of impurity and
degradation, could be identical with the Absolute Reality of Brahman, the formless
metaphysical Reality behind all phenomena. It was at this juncture that Shiva appeared as a
fiery pillar of light (jyotir linga) uniting the netherworlds and the heavens. The fifth head of
Brahmâ taunted Shiva who, overflowing with anger, created a blazing Bhairava in human
form. Addressing this Kâla Bhairava as "Lord of Time-Death" (Kâla), for he shone like the
god of Death, Shiva ordered him to chastise Brahmâ, promising him in return eternal
suzerainty over his sacred city of Kâshî (Benares). Seeing Bhairava rip off Brahmâ's guilty
head, the terrified Vishnu eulogized Shiva and devotedly recited his sacred hymns, followed
in this by the now repentant Brahmâ. They thus acknowledged the supreme reality of Shiva.
The severed head immediately stuck to Bhairava’s hand, where it remained as the skull
destined to serve as his insatiable begging bowl. Enjoining him to honor Vishnu and
Brahmâ, Shiva then directed Bhairava to roam the world in this beggarly condition to atone
for the sin of Brahmanicide. "Show to the world the rite of expiation for removing the sin of
Brahmanicide. Beg for alms by resorting to the penitential rite of the skull (kapâla-vrata)."
Creating a maiden renowned as ‘Brahmanicide’ (brahma-hatyâ), Shiva instructed her to
relentlessly follow Bhairava everywhere until he reached the holy city of Kâshî to which she
would have no access. Finally absolved, the criminal god was immediately promoted to
policeman-magistrate (Kotwal) entrusted with barring the entry of other evil-doers into this
city of death and final liberation.

Brahmashirashchedaka (Kapâlin), Kankâlamûrti and Bhikshâtanamûrti

There are three basic iconographic representations of Bhairava which derive from
this myth. As Brahma-shiras-chedaka, he grasps by its hair the severed head whose
dripping blood is greedily lapped up by his dog, and thus becomes a Kapâlin or ‘skull-
bearer’. As Kankâla-mûrti, he is shown spearing a man or already bearing the latter’s
corpse (or skeleton) on his shoulder. This illustrates that episode in Bhairava’s wanderings
when he slays Vivaksena, the Brahman guardian who tries to bar his access to Vishnu’s
abode. In both cases, he is either naked or wearing a tiger or elephant skin, a garland of
human skulls, snakes around his neck and arms, and is grotesque with dark-skin and
monstrous fangs. Third, as the milder Bhikshâtana-mûrti, he roams begging for alms
from the wives of the Seven (Vedic) Sages in the Daru forest. In this episode, the women
are so seduced by his naked beauty that they abandon all shame. But why this celebration
in stone of a criminal divinity?

Although the punishment of Bhairava corresponds perfectly to that prescribed for the
most heinous crime of Brahmanicide by the Hindu law-books, his simultaneous exaltation
reflects rather the doctrines and practices of the Kâpâlika ascetics, who took this classical
representation of Bhairava for their divine archetype. These radical Shaiva ascetics did
indeed practice human sacrifice, the ideal victim being a Brahman. Even when themselves
not originally Brahmanicides, these Kâpâlikas still performed the Mahâvrata or ‘Great
Penance’ bearing the skull-bowl and skull-staff (khatvânga) of a Brahmanicide in order to
attain the blissful state of spiritual liberation and lordship that confers magical power. The
ascetic was often accompanied by a female partner in the image of Brahmahatyâ, for sexual
union was considered the most potent means to such a condition. The classical iconography
of Bhairava thus portrays the god in the human guise of a transgressive Kâpâlika.

Kramrisch rightly says, "No contradictions were adequate and no single iconographic
likeness sufficed to render the total, tremendous mystery of Bhairava. The furthest outreach
of contradictory qualities was gathered in the intensity of myth, and split in the variety of
images in bronze and stone." O’Flaherty, remarks that "the fusion of beauty and horror in
Shaiva religion is indeed related to the reconciliation of life and death." It was this fusion of
contradictory values that seems to have facilitated the convergence of two complementary
movements within Hindu society: radical Brahmans who sought the Ultimate Truth by
transgressing the very foundations of Brahmanical orthodoxy, and untouchable (even tribal)
adherents who nevertheless conformed—in their own peculiar way—to models prescribed by
the brahmanical law-books.

Bhairava Kshetrapâla: the divine protector

The normal position of Kshetrapâla in a Hindu temple is the northeast. The Agni
Purâna (51, 17) gives an interesting description of Shiva as a Kshetrapâla. He bears a
trident and a skull. The Kshetrapâla can have two, four (indicating his pure [sâttvika] form),
six (active [râjasa] form) or eight (obscure or terrible [tâmasa] form) arms. Bhairava is the
typical Kshetrapâla for the more socio-centrally located pure divinities like Vishvanâtha in
Kâshî and also functions as the doorkeeper (dvâra-pala) at the temples of such divinities.
Bhairava preserves the socially central divinity, like Vishvanâtha from any direct contact
with impure elements which are nevertheless vital for the proper functioning of the social
whole. The terrifying divinity of transgression can never become the object of public cult as
such, and the only means for him to receive communal worship is by transforming himself
into the equally terrifying protector-god for a more central, pacific, and benign divinity. Thus
Kâla Bhairava’s promised suzerainty over Kâshî has been translated in reality into his being
the policeman magistrate (kotwal) of Lord Vishvanâtha, the patron-deity of Vârânasî
(Kâshî), the holy city of the Hindus.

Bhairavâshtamî and the eight forms of Bhairava

In his eightfold manifestation Bhairava presides, either alone or paired as consort

with the eight mother goddesses (Mâtrkâs), over the spatio-ritual organization of sacred
cities like Vârânasî. In this center of Hindu culture, Bhairava reigns as the policeman-
magistrate (kotwâl), to whom pilgrims swarming in from the furthest reaches of the
subcontinent must necessarily pay obeisance. In Katmandu, a similar role is played by the
towering black figure of Kâla Bhairava—who in some ways resembles the Buddhist Mahâkâla
—in the royal square at the center of this capital city of Nepal. Government officials and
litigants are regularly sworn in before this terrible image, which received occasional human
sacrifices well into the nineteenth century.

The eight aspects of Bhairava, further subdivided into eight (8 x 8 = 64), are named
as follows: 1) Asitânga Bhairava: golden complexion, with well-formed limbs, and carries
the trishûla (trident), damaru (hour-glass-shaped drum), pâsha (noose)
and khadga (sword). 2) Ruru Bhairava: pure white, adorned with ornaments set with
rubies, and should carry an akshamâlâ (rosary), the ankusha (elephant-goad),
a pustaka (book) and a vînâ(lute). 3) Canda Bhairava: blue color and good-looking, carry
in their hands agni (fire), shakti (spear), gadâ (mace) and kunda (water-pot). 4) Krodha
Bhairava: smoke color and should carry khetaka (shield), a long khadga (sword),
and parashu (axe). 5) Unmatta Bhairava: white color, good-looking and carry in their
hands the kunda, the khetakâ, the parigha (iron bludgeon, or club studded with iron)
and bhindipâla (javelin). 6) Kapâla Bhairava: yellow color, carry the same weapons as in
the previous group. 7) Bhîshana Bhairava: carry the same weapons as in the above
group, and are of red color. 8) Samhâra Bhairava: color resembling the lightning, carries
the same weapons as in the previous group.

It is interesting to note that in Buddhism, the Defenders of the law (Dharmapâla) are
also grouped in eight (‘The Eight Terrible Ones’). Like the eight Bhairavas they are related
to this other group of gods called the Dikpâlas, the guardians of directions, known already in
the Veda. These deities are 1) Indra, lord of east, 2) Agni, lord of the south-east, 3) Yama,
of the south, 4) Nirti, of the south-west, 5) Varuna, of the west, 6) Vâyu, of the north-west,
7) Kubera, of the north, 8) Îshâna, of the north-east.

In India today the worship of Bhairava is very similar to the worship of other
divinities. There are Bhairava temples everywhere in India from North to South and from
West to East. But Benares is the city where (Kâla) Bhairava presides as policeman-
magistrate (Kotwal). Though Kâla-Bhairava is the most important and central Bhairava, he
is not counted among the eight traditional Bhairavas in the (roughly speaking) eight
different directions of the holy city. These eight Bhairavas, to whom he has relegated his
function of Kotwal, are as follows: Ruru Bhairava (‘the Dog’) protecting the south-
east; Canda Bhairava (‘the Fierce’) in the South; Asitânga Bhairava (‘the Black-Limbed’)
now located in a niche in a temple in the east; KapâliBhairava (‘the Skull-bearer’) now
at Lât Bhairava in the north-west; Krodhana Bhairava (‘the Wrathful’) within the
sanctum of a Goddess temple protecting the south-west; Unmatta Bhairava (‘the Mad’) in
a small shrine at a village on the Pañcakroi road—along which pilgrims circumambulate the
whole city—protecting the west; Samhâra Bhairava (‘the Destroyer’) in his small temple in
the north-east; and Bhîshana Bhairava (‘the Terrible’) in his small temple protecting the
north.

It is not so much the particular identity of any specific Bhairava that is important but
rather that they form a traditional group of eight, spatially distributed in different quarters.
From this perspective, it does not matter much if some of the shrines, like those of Kapâli
Bhairava or Ruru Bhairava or even Kâla Bhairava, have been displaced in the course of
history, or that all of them are dated from the eighteenth century (their worship being
definitely older). Though borrowed from India—and often explicitly modeled on Benares—
the geometrical patterns (mandala) have been far better preserved in Newar settlements,
like the Hindu city of Bhaktapur in Nepal. That the arbitrary growth of the numerous
Bhairava temples is nevertheless governed and shaped by a preconceived theological
system based on the number eight (or sixty-four in other contexts), is revealed by the fact
that the most important pilgrimage sequence during the month of Mârgashîrsha (November-
December) is during its first eight days. Each of the eight Bhairavas is visited in turn, and in
the order of enumeration above: each Bhairava being visited on a different day. The
celebration of Kâla Bhairava, the city’s guardian magistrate, as the climax of this sequence
on Bhairavâshtamî, ‘Bhairava’s Eighth’ further emphasizes their being only the eightfold
manifestation of the former’s central authority.

Besides this classical set of eight Bhairavas, there are images of the god scattered all
about the city: either open-air, housed in small temples, or in a subsidiary position in the
temple of some other divinity. His temples often also shelter images of Ganesha, Kâlî,
Hanumân or a Shivalinga. Very often he is merely an amorphous stone heavily bedecked
with vermilion. In the south-west corner of the great Vishvanâtha temple is a beautiful
image of Bhairava. The public image of Bhairava is that of the policeman-magistrate of the
pure benign king Vishvanâtha, ‘the lord of the Universe’. Yet in Nepal, the Deccan, and
elsewhere, the two deities are constantly ‘confused’: in Banaras itself, Vishvanâtha is
secretly worshipped as the destructive (Samhâra) Bhairava on the occasion of the latter’s
birthday on Bhairavâshtamî (eighth of the waning fortnight of the month of Mrgashîrsha).
The terrible guardian is ultimately the esoteric transgressive identity of the brahmanical
Vishvanâtha.

Surrounded by the circle of the Yoginîs: Mârtanda Bhairava

Bhairava’s eight different aspects are divided further into eight subordinate forms,
making sixty-four in all. Taken as a whole, this group constitutes the cosmos. Following
the Agni Purâna (52), Mallmann indicates that the Bhairava who is in the center of the circle
of Yoginîs should have arms equal in number to the suns, that is to say to the Âdityas
presiding over the twelve months; he can also have five faces, one of them looking up. The
circle of the Yoginîs is at the same time the Earth and the Year; Bhairava is their master and
from the center where he presides, he commissions his fertilizing powers to his double
Vîrabhadra. His solar dimension is very well illustrated by Mârtanda Bhairava, who is
described in the Agni Purâna (301), as red in color: his right-half is Îshâna / Shiva and the
left-half is Ravi / Sûrya. He has four faces (connected with cardinal points), eight arms, a
dozen eyes (the number of Âdityas and months), every face has three eyes. Mârtanda
Bhairava holds in his different hands the disk and the pink lotus (indicating the relation with
the sun), the fang, the rope, the rosary, the skull, the khatvânga, and the spear.
 As Sontheimer has shown, Mârtanda Bhairava is identified with the folk-deities
Mhasobâ, Birobâ and especially Khandobâ in the Deccan, where he often resides as a snake
within the termite mound, which is itself identified as his mother Gangâ-Sûryavantî, the
womb of the hidden sun. The anthill is believed to contain treasure in the form of golden
turmeric powder: the resonances with the Vedic Agni and Soma are unmistakable. The very
name and conception of the ‘dead egg (or fetus)’ (Mârtanda) derives from a Rigvedic myth.
It is not difficult to recognize how these conceptions are retained in his classical Hindu
depiction as a solar image surrounded by the circle of the Yoginîs.

Iconography of Bhairava and Mahâkâla

According to the Vishnudharmottara, the image of Bhairava-Mahâkâla should be
depicted as "pot-bellied, and as having round tawny eyes. His face is fierce with fangs and
inflated nostrils. He wears a garland of skulls. He is fearful and possesses snake-ornaments
throughout his body. He is shown as frightening the divine daughter of the mountain (i.e.,
Pârvatî) with a snake. He has the complexion of the water-laden clouds, and the elephant-
hide as the rear cover. Endowed with many weapons in his numerous arms, resembling
large Sâla trees, and having white and sharp nails, he pervades all directions. This form in
profile is known to be of Bhairava, its frontal representation is of Mahâkâla. In his hand
should be shown a snake frightening the goddess. Also, in his front should be shown the
divine daughter of the mountain (i.e., Pârvatî). She (Pârvatî) should be shown as neither
white nor red (in color). Close by should be shown the leader of the mothers (i.e., Shiva).
Also should be shown the others of his (Shiva's) retinue in the form of ganas with various
appearances." In keeping with the Indian aesthetics of humor, it was always possible to
offset the terrifying with an endearing touch of the erotic.

In the Katmandu Valley, representations of Mahâkâla incorporate traits of other

divinities such as Samvara, Hevraja, Heruka. Bhairava and Yamântaka are very often
identified. According to the Mahâvajrabhairava tantra, Yamântaka must have sixteen feet,
thirty-four arms, and nine heads. He is naked and black. "He steps to the right, and his
aspect is more than terrible. The first head is that of a bull. Next to the right horn, he must
have three heads: blue, grey, and black. Between the horns must be painted a head, red
and terrible, above which must be the head of Mañjushrî with a slightly irritated expression.
The right feet tread on animals, and the left on birds. In the bronzes Yamântaka may be
treading on demons, under which are animals and birds, or the reverse, or the demons may
be supporting the throne as in the accompanying illustration. Yamântaka has a skull
diadem, a belt of heads, a third eye, and steps to the right. He may have five heads, and
hold the skin of a human being over his shoulders, he is usually figured with his Shakti."

Vîrabhadra: alter ego of Bhairava

Like Bhairava, Vîrabhadra is a terrifying deity born from Shiva's anger provoked by
the performance of a sacrifice to which he was not invited and, as the consequence of this
outrage, the self-immolation of his beloved wife Satî. In other versions, we are told that
"the cluster of matted hair split into two halves. Vîrabhadra arose from one half of that
cluster of hair. From the other half there arose the dreadful Mahâkâlî. This awful goddess
was the female counterpart of Vîrabhadra. Elsewhere, however, it is said that Vîrabhadra
was created from Shiva’s brow." Shiva created Vîrabhadra with a thousand heads, eyes and
arms, "having side-tusks, carrying the conch (shankha), the discus (cakra) and a bow, and
besmeared with ashes." The theme of Daksha’s sacrifice is also illustrated by a beheading:
Vîrabhadra cuts off the head of Daksha, the father of Satî. The head of the sacrificer
Daksha-Prajâpati, who is comparable to Brahmâ, is replaced by that of a goat, which is a
typical sacrificial animal. A central idea underlying both the human sacrifices of the
Kâpâlikas and the purified Vedic sacrifice is the symbolic identification of the sacrificer and
of the victim substituted in his place. The iconography of Vîrabhadra serves to bring out all
the more clearly the Vedic sacrificial ideas that have been translated, via the brahmanicide
myth, into the tantric currents centered around the worship of such ‘folk-deities’.

According to the Shrîtattvanidhi, Vîrabhadra should be represented with "four arms,

three eyes, and a terrible face with fierce side-tusks. In the left hands should be held a bow
and a mace (gadâ), and in the right ones a sword (khadga) and an arrow (bâna). It should
be wearing a garland of skulls, and should be standing on a pair of sandals. By the side of
the figure of Vîrabhadra there should be the figure of Bhadrakâlî also. On the right side of
Vîrabhadra there should be the figure of Daksha with a goat’s head, two eyes and two
horns, and with hands cupped together in the posture of offering (añjali)." But according to
the Kiranâgama, the figure of Vîrabhadra should have "four arms, three eyes, head covered
with matted hair which emits fire, side-tusks, and wearing garlands composed of bells and
skulls and those made of scorpions, a snake as sacred thread, and adorned with beautiful
anklets; it should be standing upon a pair of sandals and should have short drawers as his
underwear. The color of Vîrabhadra should be red; he should have a face indicating great
anger, and should look terrifying. He should carry the sword, the khetakâ, the bow and
arrow." The Agni-Purânagives a different description: Vîrabhadra’s vehicle is a bull, he leads
the Mâtrkâs (mothers) or is their lover. He has four faces and four arms. His color is white.

Among the Jainas and Buddhists: Bhairava worship today

In Jain temples of Vârânasî (Uttar Pradesh), Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh), and
Rajasthan, Bhairava is sometimes simply called ‘guardian of territorial limits’ or given a new
name, Mânabhadra / Manibhadra. Most popular in Rajasthan is the Jaina Nakoda Bhairava
who, by drawing Hindu and Jaina pilgrims from all over the state, overshadows even the
principal shrine of Pârshvanâtha. Devotees routinely fall into a trance before this otherwise
Jaina image. The Newar Buddhists worship their own counterparts of Bhairava like
Mahâkâla, Samvara and Heruka. However, their tantric priests are still officiants for the
secret rituals of Bhairava even for the Hindus. In the Hindu royal festivals of Katmandu, he
chooses to manifest himself in the body of a Buddhist gardener. It is among the Newars
that the savagery of Bhairava has been best conserved.
 In Madhya Pradesh, in Ujjain which also claims to be the sacred city where Bhairava
was absolved of his brahmanicide, I met a devotee of Vikrânta Bhairava who has succeeded
in attracting devotees from all walks of life, including university lecturers, government
officials, journalists who make it their duty to report on its evolution, etc. Although originally
an exclusive goddess-worshipper before establishing himself with his family at Ujjain, he
had then visions of Bhairava and was directed by the goddess to meditate on Vikrânta
Bhairava. This is a derelict temple on the bank of the river Kshiprâ, on the former
circumambulation route (pañcakroshî) around the city. Through his worship he has acquired
spiritual powers (siddhi) which permit him to exercise his clairvoyance every morning for
the general public that flocks to him. A regular weekly cult had spontaneously revived at
this temple in a rather ‘neo-Vedic’ mode with havan, etc. What is most interesting is that he
has received no regular initiation into the worship of Bhairava, but has instructed himself
into the appropriate ritual utterances (mantra), gestures (nyâsa), mystic diagrams (yantra),
procedures (paddhati), after having received his vocation through visions. This testifies to
the resilience of Bhairava-worship.

The pole and the pot: Bhairava in the primordial cosmogony

Just as Indian policemen are traditionally armed with staves, Bhairava too is
regularly depicted with a club or cudgel. The non-conformist anti-social Pâshupata Shaiva
ascetics in fact carried clubs in ritual imitation of their divinized legendary founder, Lakula.
The term lât is itself probably a corruption of laguda (club), and even criminal Kâpâlikas
carry clubs called khatvânga in ritual imitation of their divinity Bhairava, who roams with a
human skull in one hand and the club in the other. A pillar, now only a ten-foot tall stump
encased in copper sheeting and smeared in vermilion, on the northern fringe of Vârânasî is
identified with Bhairava’s lât. Though completely unknown to the Purânas, Lât Bhairava is
nowadays identified with the Purânic Kapâlin Bhairava which was originally located
elsewhere in the city. It was here, in the large tank called Kapâlamocana beside the pillar,
that Bhairava was absolved of his brahmanicide and promoted to Kotwal. The Lât is of
central significance to Hinduism, because it is here that Bhairava metes out his ‘punishment’
to all those who are fortunate enough to die in Benares, thereby absolving them of their
sins and granting them instant liberation.

Bhairava not only wields the lât, he is himself the lât, especially when it assumes the
form of a cosmic pillar (stambha). The lât, the pillar, and Bhairava are equally identified
with the axis mundi. It is here in Kâshî that Rudra-Shiva appeared as the linga of light
(jyotirliga): what Mircea Eliade has called the axis mundi, the pillar at the center of the
world, originating deep in the netherworld, cracking the surface of the earth and splitting
the roof of the sky. The annual celebration of the pillar’s marriage to an adjoining ‘maternal’
well (kûpa-jananî) still continues in vestigial form. Though nowadays officiated by a
Brahman priest, this ‘folk’ festival was formerly celebrated especially by the lower-castes.
There even used to be a mock combat between two opposing tribes of ‘Kols’ and ‘Bhils’. The
cosmogonic setting becomes evident in the erection of the wooden pole, always called linga,
during the New-Year (Bisket) festival of Bhaktapur in Nepal. This was accompanied by
ritualized conflict between the lower and upper halves of the city for possession of the
chariot of Bhairava. Such dualist opposition, so characteristic of Newar festivals, is only one
of many features that betray the tribal substratum of such Hinduized societies.
The linga there is not only of Bhairava, but also is Bhairava, and the greenery attached to
its summit is assimilated to semen, so much so that there is a mad scramble, when the pole
is felled the next (New Year's) day, to secure some of this greenery which has the power to
bestow children on barren couples. The founding myths for this ‘marriage’ with the mound
of mother-earth that receives and bears the linga explicitly affirm that Kâla Bhairava came
from Benares.

The Vedic pole erected to represent the axis mundi during the ancient New Year
festivals was rather identified with Indra’s flag-pole (dhvaja) or Indra himself. The date
prescribed by the Hindu texts for this now obsolete festival of the Vedic ‘king of the gods’ is
the very date, the twelfth of the waxing fortnight of the month of Bhâdra, when the
marriage of Lât Bhairava is celebrated. In Katmandu, where this royal festival has still
survived, the flag-pole is called not only linga, but also by the Newar term meaning
sacrificial pole (yûpa). I have argued elsewhere that the marriage of Lât Bhairava is
ultimately the vestige of a pre-Islamic royal cosmogony: Bhairava represents the Hindu king
who offers himself at the (transposition of the Vedic sacrificial) stake in what is
simultaneously conceived to be a sexual union. Hence the choice of this date—so
inauspicious for any Hindu wedding—which marks the beginning of the fortnight reserved
for the performance of funerary rituals for the manes. This death-in-union is, however, only
the prelude to the rebirth of the royal sacrificer and, with it, the rejuvenation of the whole
kingdom. Hence, the promise of fertility that accompanies the marriage of Lât Bhairava. As
the embodiment of Rudra’s anger, Bhairava, emerging from the cosmic pillar represents the
consecrated Vedic sacrificer (dîkshita) who is identified—like the victim—with the stake. It is
this violent, transgressive dimension of the otherwise purified brahmanical sacrifice,
exteriorized into the independent Kâpâlika current, that has permitted the assimilation of
tribal cults—whether agricultural, pastoral or hunting based—centered on possession and
blood (including human) sacrifices.

The ‘incestuous’ notations of the cosmogonic marriage derive from the idea that the
sexual union is simultaneously a regression of the consecrated Vedic sacrificer, charged with
evil and impurity, into a prenatal condition within the maternal womb. Among the Newars,
this ‘embryogonic’ dimension of Bhairava is represented especially by an earthen or metal
pot with the likeness of his image, face, or just his eyes, painted or engraved upon it.
Pachali Bhairava, for example, is represented by a bronze pot filled with a mixture of
alcohol, meat, and other offerings and kept sealed for an entire year in the house of a
Newar farmer. The annual festival primarily celebrates the replenishing of the ‘ambrosia’ in
the pot, while it is being transferred from one family to the next from a clan of twelve
families. This pot is symbolically assimilated to another larger copper pot in which a
deformed man, the substitute victim, used to be placed with flowers sacred to the sun god.
Among the pastoral tribes of the Deccan, the same role is played not so much by any
human artifact but by the natural form of the termite-mound, wherein the solar Mârtanda-
Bhairava resides in the form of a snake. The mound itself is identified with the goddess
Gangâ-Sûryavantî, and is believed to contain gold (in the form of turmeric powder). Blood
sacrifices are made to the mound itself. Despite the tribal setting, much of this symbolism—
especially the idea of Mârtanda and the term itself can be traced back to Vedic sources.
Sontheimer generally dealt with these striking continuities by reducing much of Vedic
mythology and ritual to ‘folk’ religion as opposed to classical Hinduism. Yet, the same
paradigms underlie the brahmanical sacrifice itself.

Sontheimer also repeatedly underlined the ‘popular’ non-sectarian character of

Bhairava worship, which encompasses tribal populations, Jainas, and even Muslims in
the Deccan. Among the Newars, various Buddhist castes play crucial roles in the festivals
especially at the royal level. Indeed, the chief specialists, even for the regular worship of
Bhairava by the Hindu community, are often ‘Brahman’ Vajrâcâryas, who are Buddhist
tantric priests. It is they who initiate low-caste Buddhist gardeners of Katmandu into the
techniques of dance and possession by Bhairava. The present Hindu king of Nepalcontinues
to renew his power and his kingdom, every twelve years, by exchanging swords with such a
Buddhist gardener, the living embodiment of the untouchable Bhairava. The Newar evidence
suggests that—many prejudices to the contrary—Buddhism played a crucial role in gradually
assimilating tribal and other pre-Âryan societies to the Hindu socio-religious model. Lât
Bhairava itself has been identified as an Ashokan, and more recently by John Irwin as a pre-
Ashokan, pillar. It once stood beside a stûpa—itself charged with funerary notations—and
Buddhist architectural remains still decorate the Muslim monuments at the site.
Authoritative Hindu texts affirm that Banaras was once a non-brahmanical center from
which Shiva himself was excluded, and that it was only through the ruse of preaching
‘protestant’ Buddhism that the city was divested of its original pre-Âryan religion. Bhairava
was absolved of his crime of Brahmanicide when he bathed in the Kapâlamocana tank
during the extremely auspicious conjunction when the whole city was transformed into a
primordial hill by the flood-waters of the maternal Gangâ. The Svayambhû stûpa, which
plays the same role in the Newar cosmogonic myth based on the pre-historic draining of the
Kathmandu Valley, still remains the focus of a pilgrimage circuit that connects it to a Kotwal
Bhairava located at the point where the Bâgmatî (-Gangâ) river emerges from the Valley.
Even the original Buddhist resistance towards anthropomorphic forms of the divine seems to
have later succumbed—especially with the rise of tantricism—to the combined pressures of
tribal cults on the one hand and a re-assertive Hinduism on the other.

The low-caste Muslim weavers, who used to celebrate the marriage of Lât Bhairava
with their Hindu neighbors, are in all probability (Hinduized) Buddhist artisans who were
converted after the Islamic conquest of the 12th century. The Hindu-Buddhist monuments
were demolished and transformed into an imposing mosque during the reign of the emperor
Aurangzeb, but the aniconic pillar was left standing before the niche (mihrab) of the
Muslim idgah. The syncretic ‘folk-cult’ was thus firmly inscribed in the direction of the
unhewn black stone of the Meccan Kaaba. The lower caste Hindus reciprocated by joining
the Muslims in celebrating the annual marriage of their saint Ghâzi Miyan, likewise
represented by a pole bearing his head. The center of this Muslim cult is in north-eastern
Uttar Pradesh at Bahraich around the tomb of this proselytizing saint, the nephew of
Mahmud of Ghazni, who was martyred in the 12th century while attempting to eradicate the
pagan sun-cult of the Bhar tribes. A systematic analysis of the cult of Ghazi Miyan however
reveals it to be an Islamic adaptation of a pre-existing Hindu ‘folk-cult’ similar to that of
Mârtanda Bhairava studied by Sontheimer in the Deccan. It could however be argued that
this assimilation was so successful because these symbols—especially the pillar and the pole
(qutb)—already had deep resonances (not only within the brahmanical but also) within the
high Islamic tradition.

The mask of Bhairava: dance and possession

Aesthetically, the most appealing icon of Shiva is probably his manifestation as the
‘King of Dance’ Natarâja engaged—as in the Tamil temple of Cidambaram—in the wild dance
of creation and destruction. With matted hair, hour-glass shaped drum, and smeared with
ashes, the furious Rudra has been cast in the image of the Pâshupata ascetic who sought
fusion with his lord through techniques of possession induced by ritual dance. Though the
Pâshupata began his spiritual discipline with extreme concern for the rules of purity—just as
the brahmanical Shiva is shielded from all defilement within his nuclear temples—he
ultimately sought union with the terrible god by transgressing these norms in the
cremation-grounds. It is this impure dimension that comes to the fore in the Newar
appropriation of the god of dance as Nasadyah, whose image is left buried in a rubbish heap
except for a single occasion each year. Nasadyah is the patron deity for the dance and
music associations whose ritual performance is indispensable for the celebration of the
colorful variety of festivals that fill the Newar calendar.

Representative of the low-caste gardeners who incarnate the gods are the
Navadurgâ dancers of Katmandu and especially Bhaktapur. Possessed by the divinities—and
often quivering in a trance-like state—these masked dancers drink the blood of still
palpitating animals. It is the details of the masks which distinguish their divine identities:
that of Kâla Bhairava, who is the principal actor, must be dark blue, practically black. With
mud from the basin of a sacred stream, the masks are fabricated for the Dasain celebrations
by a specific caste of painters and through a very secret procedure. They are cremated at
the beginning of the rainy season, and from the ashes new masks are created the following
year. The masks are considered so potent—even independently of their otherwise human
bearers—that the Newars worship them as manifestations of the deities within the
Navadurgâ temple. By facilitating the effacement of the limited human persona, the mask
has acquired—through that metonymy so characteristic of the sacred—the otherwise
inscrutable face of the supreme divinity hidden within the heart of the human actor himself.

Conclusion
 Bhairava in Kashmir Saivism is a designation for the undifferentiated universal
consciousness. The Vijñâna-Bhairava Tantra raises the question: "What is the real form of
Bhairava, the terrible?" Bhairava himself replies to the goddess: "Know that there is only
one form which is ultimately real: the spotless [reality] which fills everything, the state of
Bhairava [called] Bhairavî [because it is] absolutely replete, being beyond determination by
direction or time, unlocated, impossible to indicate, ultimately indescribable, blissful with
the self’s innermost experience of its own identity, free of all thought. Within such an
Absolute how can one distinguish a recipient of worship or gratification?" "worship likewise
is not what is accomplished by [offering] flowers and the rest. It is awareness made firm,
dissolution into that final void [within consciousness] which is free of all thought, through
intense conviction [that this is the goal]."

Philosopher-mystics, like the great Abhinavagupta (10th to 11th century) who has
left us such a remarkable synthesis of Hindu culture, thus identified themselves with the
supreme Bhairava through a tantric gnosis that often involved the transgression of
brahmanical norms. However, the term used for such a realization—which was often
mediated by the worship of, and meditation upon, images of the terrible god— was still
‘possession’ (âvesha). In tribal and folk religion—in India as elsewhere—the supreme
manifestation of the divinity is his living embodiment in human form. Between these two
poles, one perpetually rediscovers the inexhaustible wealth of sculpted images that together
constitute the Hindu pantheon. Paradoxically, the forms (mûrti) that best express the
ultimate nature of the ineffable Reality are perhaps these amorphous stones—found
everywhere in India, including Banaras—that are simply called Bir Babas, before they are
gradually promoted into images that are clearly identifiable as one form or another of the
Hindu Bhairava.

Elizabeth Chalier-Visuvalingam
(University of Nanterre, Paris-X / Harvard University)

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V. Bouiller (eds.), Classer les Dieux en Himalaya et en Asie du Sud (forthcoming).

————, and SUNTHAR VISUVALINGAM (1993b). Between Lhasa and Banaras: Pacali
Bhairava of Katmandu (Towards an Acculturation Model of Hindu-Buddhist
Relations). In Robert Brown and Katherine Anne Harper eds., The Roots of
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an International Conference. lubeck, June 1985. Edited by Niels Gutschow and
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Kuruksetra. Chicago. University Chicago Press.

IRWIN, J., (1983). The Lat Bhairo at Benares (Varanasi): Another Pre-Asokan Monument?
In Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, pp. 321-352.

KNIPE, D.M., (1989), Night of the Growing Dead: A Cult of Vîrabhadra in Coastal Andhra, in
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(ed.), L’image Divine, culte et méditation dans l'hindouisme. Paris. CNRS. pp.31-
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presented to the Assembly of the World Religions, New York: November 1985;
and to the Transgressive Sacrality Conference at
the University of Wisconsin, Madison, on 08th November 1986.

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————, (1993). Death, Sexuality and Transgression in Hinduism and Islam: The
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————, and CHALIER-VISUVALINGAM, S., (1994). Between Mecca and Benares: The
Marriage of lat Bhairava and Ghazi Miyan (Towards an Acculturation Model of
Hindu-Muslim Relations). Monograph under preparation.

Elizabeth Chalier-Visuvalingam, Doctorat de troisième cycle, University of Paris-

X in anthropology and Ph.D in Indian Philosophy at the BanarasHindu University (India), is
currently (1990-1992) visiting scholar at Harvard University in the Sanskrit and Indian
Studies Department. She has undertaken fieldwork between 1984 and 1989 in North India
above all in Benares and also in the Katmandu Valley among the Newars. Her principal
publications include "Bhairava: Kotwal of Varanasi" in Varanasi Through the
Ages, Varanasi 1986; "Adepts of the god Bhairava in the Hindu Tradition," in Kulture Istoka,
1988, Zagreb; "Bhairava’s Royal Brahmâanicide: The Problem of the Mahâbrâhmana,"
in Criminal Gods and Demon Devotees, ed. Alf Hiltebeitel, SUNY Press. 1989; "Le roi et le
jardinier: Pacali Bhairava de Kathmandou." in G. Toffin and V. Bouiller eds., Classer les
Dieux en Himalaya en Asie du Sud (forthcoming).
 Last edited: Monday, April 30, 2007 12:22 PM -0500 | Last saved: Monday, April 30, 2007
12:22 PM -0500

1 I thank Dr. Sunthar Visuvalingam for his help in articulating the conceptual
framework of this presentation. See Visuvalingam 1986 and 1989, on the
centrality of ‘transgressive sacrality’ for an understanding of Bhairava.

2 Gopinatha Rao 1968:146. Vol. 2, Part 1.

3 These five faces, called Pañca Brahman, are part of a philosophical scheme; for instance, this face is also associated with the
mind, the smell, the generative organ and the earth. See Dillard Collins 1988:91–92.

4 Kramrisch 1981:255.

5 On these dances, see Gutschow and Basukala 1987:135-166.

6 See Chalier-Visuvalingam 1989 and also Kramrisch 1981: chapter 9.

7 Kramrisch 1981:287.

8 For a study of the Kâpâlika, see Lorenzen 1972.

9 Kramrisch 1981:297.

10 Flaherty 1973:237.

11 Hiltebeitel 1988:122.

12 De Mallmann 1963:68-69

13 Chalier-Visuvalingam 1986.

14 Interestingly enough these eight forms of Bhairava are connected with the murder of the demon Andhaka by Shiva. See Collins 1988:60
and n.44 p.181.

15 Getty 1928:148.

16 Eck 1983:274.

17 Gopinatha Rao (1968:180-181). Volume 2, part I and Mallmann (1963) for the connection between the sixty-four Yoginîs and the sixty-
four Bhairavas.

18 Chalier-Visuvalingam (1989:195), and Sontheimer (1976:183-6,204,249,252).

19 De Mallmann (1963:8 and 9) and also the whole chapter IV.

20 This is a club shaped like the foot of a bedstead, i.e. a club or staff with a skull at the top. About Khatvânga, see De Mallmann
(1963:101-102).

21 Vishnudharmottara, Chapter 59, see Bhattacharyya 1991:89-92.

23 Getty 1928:164.

24 Hiltebeitel 1988:372-373 et index.

25 Kramrisch (1981:323).

26 See Gopinatha Rao 1968, volume 2, part I, p. 183.

27 On Daksha's sacrifice, see O’Flaherty 1973, Knipe 1989, Kramrisch 1981.

28 Gopinatha Rao 1968, volume 2, part I, p 186.

29 De Mallmann, 1963:62-63.

30 Lorenzen 1972:2, 5, esp. 75, 177.

31 See Eck 1982:109.

32 See Chalier-Visuvalingam 1994.

33 Chalier-Visuvalingam, 1989, particularly the section on "The Khatvânga Bhairava: Executioner, Victim and Sacrificial Stake"
(pp.183-91).

34 See Irwin 1983.

35 Visuvalingam 1993, 1994.

36 Sanderson 1990:75.

37 Coccari 1989.

22 See the comment of Bhattacharyya (1991:92 note 5): "This is not the
description of two deities, but a single deity in dual presence. The profile
form is known as Bhairava, its frontal representation as Mahâkâla. The
description is that of an action-oriented image. Thus both the frontal and the
profile forms of the deity have to be conceived within a single imagery." See
also his introduction, p.xxxviii-xxxix: "The most interesting aspect of the
description is that it refers to two forms of the same deity, Shiva. The
colophon statement that it is the description of the form of Bhairava, and
also that of Mahâkâla (bhairava-rûpamahâ-kâla-rûpa nirmam), envisages the
simultaneous presence of the two forms. In the description too, it is
clarified that the difference between the two forms is not merely in the
nomenclature. The implied sense seems to be the dual presence of the same
figure, presumably in a sequential order. The presence of the figure in the
profile (known as Bhairava) is followed by its frontal appearance (known
as Mahâkâla) or the vice-versa. The visual comprehension of the repetition of
these two presences amounts to the discernment of a figure in movement——of a
figure which is engaged continually in turning its body from the front to both
the sides. This will mean that chapter 59 of the Pratimâlakshana envisages not
the picture of a rigidly fixed form, but it contemplates the image of an
animated body. The following is the description of the visualized
animation: Shiva, with a snake in his hand, is engaged in the divine revelry
(ll) of frightening Parvatî who stands nearby. As panic-stricken Parvatî flees
to a side, Shiva turns his body accordingly to continue the frolicsome play,
and at that time only the profile of his presence (known as Bhairava) is
noticeable. As Parvatî retreats to the front, Shiva gets back to the frontal
posture (known as Mahâkâla). If the above interpretation is valid, herein we
have the notice of an iconographic motif of the narrative type with dramatic
content visualizing the notion of animation in pictorial terms. Although such
notional formulations are not unknown in Buddhist iconography, particularly of
the Vajrayâna-Tantrayâna phase, the texts dealing with Hindu iconography very
seldom describe such forms. In view of this, chapter 59 of the
Pratimâlakshana, is a rare document of a unique imagery."