bhairava
भैरव bhairavaA fierce form of Shiva, the guardian who destroys fear and the ego. Worshipped especially in tantric and Shakta traditions, and as Kala Bhairava, the lord of time and protector of sacred cities such as Kashi.
Explained in depth in Who is Bhairava?Where this term appears
- Who is Parvati? Deities
In the Agamas and the Tantras she is the one who asks: the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra opens with the Devi's question, and Shiva's hundred and twelve answers are the scripture.
- Who is Shiva? Deities
As Gaṅgādhara , bearer of the Ganga, Shiva is read as the one who breaks the force of an overwhelming descent so that finite creatures can receive it. Bhairava and Brahma's fifth head.
- Eighty-five titles and no text: the Saura tantras and how a tradition disappears Lineages
The five srotas , the five streams issuing from the five faces of Sadashiva, are a genuine classification and a genuinely tantric one. They are Siddhanta, Garuda, Vama, Bhuta and Bhairava.
- The 28 Śaiva Āgamas Lineages
On the other side stand the non-Saiddhāntika scriptures, the Bhairava tantras, more monistic, more Śākta, more transgressive, home to the Trika and the Krama and the goddess-centred cults that fed Kashmir Śaivi…
- The 64 Śākta Tantras Lineages
Eight is a sacred count in the Śākta world: the eight Bhairavas, the eight Mother-goddesses, the eight directions.
- The Aghorīs Lineages
The god he worships is most often Bhairava , Shiva in his fierce form, whose name the tradition glosses as the "destroyer of fear." The logic of the cremation ground Now the central move, stated as soberly as i…
- The Pāñcarātra Saṃhitās Lineages
The Kūrma Purāṇa lumps the Pāñcarātra with the Kāpālika and Bhairava cults as scriptures made "for the delusion of mankind," and calls its followers non-Vedic.
- The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra Lineages
It is called the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra , and it is one of the most extraordinary texts in the whole of Indian religion — a short, luminous work of the Kashmir Shaiva tradition that may be the most practical p…