by
published in
V�r�nas� Through
the Ages
Editors:
(Varanasi: Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Samiti, U.P.,1986)
[241] ....
[p.250>] �
[p.253>] ��Death in K�sh� is not death feared, for here
the ordinary God of Death, frightful Yama, has no jurisdiction. Death in K�sh�
is death known and faced, transformed and transcended� (
What is important in the present context, is that
the funerary rites in K�sh� transform natural death into the most concrete and
vivid symbol of the sacrificial or initiatic death that can even occur prior to
and independently of physical death as the inevitable lot of all mortals. We
would like to suggest here that, if the adepts of Bhairava, being themselves
Bhairava incarnate, did not fear death anywhere, this was because they had already
undergone an initiatic death even while living and the subsequent
natural death was, for them, only a faint shadow and tangible physical symbol
of this initiatic death. In fact, in the origin-myth, the
For the
ordinary K�sh�-dweller, however, this initiatic death is supposed to occur only
at the time of its natural counterpart, and it intervenes during the latter
process in the form of the �punishment of Bhairava� �[255>]� (bhairav�-y�tan�) whose �dispensation is an important
part of Bhairava�s function in the city� (
This
paradoxical fusion of two opposing meanings can perhaps best be resolved by
assuming that the bhairav�-y�tan� ultimately refers not to Bhairava as the giver or receiver
of punishment but to the suffering involved in the initiatic death
which alone can confer liberation at the time of natural death. �In the
case of a man of great spiritual force a kind of spontaneous combustion cracks
open his skull to release the vital breath�. An image of the way in which the
soul might ideally emerge was provided by the case of
an old householder, whose extraordinary spiritual development had gained him a
circle of devoted disciples, and whose subsequent mortuary rituals I attended. His
copybook death was said to have been consummated on his funeral pyre when his
burning corpse successively manifested itself to a privileged few in the forms
of the celebrated religious leaders Sai Baba, Mehar Baba and Rama Krishna Paramhamsa, as the terrifying god Bhairava (Lord Ziva�s kotv�l or
�police-chief� in Benares) and finally Ziva himself. A
rounded protuberance was seen to move up the spine
of the corpse, burst through the skull, soar into the air and split
into three parts. One fell in
So powerful are the structured images of the inner
lived experience of initiatic death projected onto the Hindu symbolic universe,
that it has actually become possible for the pious to really �see� the process
taking place in the dead or dying adept! If the bhairav�-y�tan� is administered at the L�t-Bhairava, this would not only be
because the l�th �is
the obvious instrument of punishment at the hands of the kotw�l,
but also because the L�t-[256>]� Bhairava
as axis-mundi�
is only the macrocosmic projection of the spinal column, and the
initiatic death involved the forcing up of the vital airs through the sushumn�� in the form of a fire-ball that pierces
through the cranium at the �aperture of Brahm� (brahma-randhra).
Only such an understanding of Bhairava�s
staff would explain the definition of the K�p�lika�s khatv�nga�
as a �banner made of a skull mounted on a stick (danda)� (Lorenzen, p.75, citing Vij��nezvara�s Mit�kshara
commentary on Y�j�avalkya iii.243), resembling the
head mounted on the L�t-Bhairava itself during festive occasions. Not only does
the sacred mystic geography of K�sh� confirm that cremation at Manikarnik� is
understood in terms of the adept�s fiery ascent up the sushumn� ,
but the appellation of the latter in esoteric tantric texts as zmaz�na �very clearly reveals that it is
this ascent� that constitutes the real or
initiatic death. Though K�sh� is sometimes identified
with the �j��-cakra, mystic center between the nose and the
eyebrows, it is also identified with the subtle body as a whole. �The rivers As� and Varuna at the extremities of the city, and a third
river which flows through the center, are identified with the three main veins
of the yogic body�respectively with id�, pingal� and sushumn� (�). Under normal conditions, at least,
the third river is not visible and its precise location open to interpretation.
Some of the more theologically sophisticated of my own
informants identified it with the Brahman�l�, a small
rivulet of which there are now no obvious traces but which is supposed to have
issued into the Gang� at Manikarnik�. According to this identification, then,
the central vein of K�sh�s mystical body thus
terminates at the cremation ground, equating it with the highest center of the
yogic anatomy. In this context,� it is perhaps worth recalling that two
synonyms found in the texts for sushumn� are brahma-n�d� (�brahman�l�?) and zmaz�na
�(cremation ground)� (Parry 1982, p.343 and
note 8). I have found the same mystic geography of
three rivers centering on shrines of Bhairava in
According to one of my informants, not originally resident of Benares
and at that time rather ignorant of these matters, the gathering of the vital
energies at the base of the spine and their forced penetration up the median
canal is accompanied by intense and almost unbearable suffering, especially to
one who is unprepared, and is an experience verging on self-annihilation, like
death. He claims that
this occurred to him rather suddenly and unexpectedly while he was wholly
committed to a transgressive attitude, and he withdrew prematurely before the process
could take its proper course, as he felt he was not yet ready to die. If this
could be taken as a reliable guide to understanding the initiatic death of the
adepts of Bhairava, it would not be
difficult to explain how the bhairav�-y�tan�
could have the ambiguous meaning we noted above. Insofar as the adept is
completely identified with Bhairava,
the initiatic death would be the �suffering of Bhairava� himself; but insofar
as it is conceived of as being as it were imposed on the pilgrim, it would be the� �punishment�
meted out by Bhairava. The idea of �punishment� in the bhairav�-y�tan� seems to have been introduced only to
satisfy the karma doctrine indissociable from a
sacred of interdictions, that is also wholly responsible for Bhairava�s having to expiate his
brahmanicide through [257>] twelve-year long kap�la-vrata. But
it is radically contradicted by our knowledge that the adepts of Bhairava, whether K�p�likas, Aghoris or Na6aths, sought to transcend both good and evil,
to conquer death and attain a mode of immortality, through an uncompromisingly
transgressive sacrality. Though K�sh� is the sacred city where Bhairava was absolved
of his sin of brahmanicide, he was rewarded with suzerainty over it precisely
because he had carried out the order to decapitate Brahm�s fifth head.�
Throughout
this article, we have alluded to, even played upon, the contradiction between
Bhairava being at the same time chief policeman-magistrate [kotw�l] of K�sh� and also a heinous criminal divinity adored especially by
anti-social ascetics who flagrantly transgressed even the most fundamental
socio-religious norms and rules. It is now necessary to pose this paradox
explicitly. For a kotw�l� expected to punish criminals
for their sins, Bhairava has
the truly bizarre function in K�sh� of taking upon himself or devouring the
sins of the pilgrims so much so that one of his titles is �Sin-Eater� (P�pa-bhakshana). �Here in K�sh� the place called
Kap�lamocana comes to symbolize the power to make sins fall away, for here
�Where the Skull Fell� the worst of sins was shed� (Eck p.119). The
The most important festival dedicated to this
guardian policeman-magistrate of K�sh� is Bhairav�shtam�, which, instead of celebrating his
investiture with the office of kotw�l , on the
contrary, celebrates the birth of Bhairava,
born only to perpetrate his brahmanicide immediately. �On this day alone, the
cloth apron that covers all but K�la-Bhairava�s face is removed. He is garlanded
with a necklace of solid silver skulls. People crowd in for the darzana� of his complete
image on this day� (
Moreover,
if Bhairava
has already once and for all been purified of his terrible sin, how
could he continue to play the impure role of scapegoat by taking over, tainting
himself with, the sins of others? True such a scapegoat role
is also played by the mask of
Bhairava's twelve-year wanderings
as a beggar, bearing Brahm�'s skull as public testimony to his crime and
begging from the seven houses of the Seven Sages in the Daru
forest, all of these and other traits, like his exclusion from settlements and
inhabiting the cremation-grounds, correspond exactly to the prescribed punishment
for Brahmanicide in the Brahmanical law-books (Stietencron
1969, p.867; Lorenzen pp.74-76). But whereas in Hindu society such brahmanicides, even if themselves brahmins, were treated as
horrible outcastes and considered wholly degraded, Bhairava is exalted in the
myth as the supreme divinity by Brahm� and Vishnu, the latter even recognizing
that he remains untainted by the sin of brahmanicide. Though the punishment of
Bhairava corresponds perfectly to the norms of brahmanical orthodoxy, his simultaneous
exaltation corresponds rather to the doctrines and practices of the K�p�lika
ascetics, who took the brahmanicidal Bhairava for their divine archetype. Even when
themselves not originally brahmanicides, these K�p�likas
performed the Mah�vrata or �Great Penance� bearing the skull of a brahmin in
order to attain the blissful state of spiritual liberation and lordship that
confers the eight-fold magical powers (Lorenzen, pp.92-95). Following the �doctrine
of Soma�, the K�p�likas experienced the spiritual bliss of Bhairava in the
felicity of sexual union induced and enhanced by the partaking of meat and
wine. Whereas Bhairava is presented in the myth as
undertaking the �k�p�lika
vow� as punishment in order to expiate his brahmanicide, the K�p�likas in pursuit
of their �supreme penance� (mah�-vrata)
have always been associated with human sacrifices (Lorenzen, pp.85-7), the
ideal victim being a brahmin, and it is clear that brahmanicide [p.259>] or, rather,
whatever it symbolizes, was itself supposed to be productive of great power.
If the intention of the brahma-ziraz-ccheda
[�cutting of the head of Brahm�] myth could be reduced to a narrow sectarian
exaltation of an extra-brahmanical Bhairava or the deliberate devaluation of
the brahmin, there would have been no sense in Shiva instructing Bhairava to
strictly conform to the brahmanical legal prescriptions for the expiation of brahmanicide.
The fact that Bhairava scrupulously performs it amounts to a full valorization
of the brahmin (= Brahm�, cf.
The question why Bhairava, the supreme divinity of
Transgression, had to come to K�sh�, the Centre of the whole Universe, of all
places, in order to be promoted from criminal to policeman, will have to be
answered in my subsequent article on �Bhairava: Transgression and Embryogony in K�sh�.�