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Summary: Bhīmasena, the second of the five Pāṇḍava brothers in the Mahābhārata, is
worshipped in Nepal as a form of Śiva or, more precisely, as Bhairava. Referred to as
‘Bhīmsen’, he is especially popular among the Newar trading community, which worships
his images on small altars in shops. Inscriptional evidence shows that Bhīmasena has been
worshipped in Nepal at least since 1540, but the cult is likely to be older. Bhīmasena’s
shrines and temples are common in today’s Nepal, and various iconographic forms of
the divinity are represented independently in paintings and line drawings, and as wood-
carvings and brass sculptures. In this paper I examine the rather complex iconography of
Bhīmasena which developed in Nepal under the influence of Tantrism. I especially focus
on representations of Bhīmasena slaying Duḥśāsana, in which he is accompanied by two
small emaciated figures associated with charnel grounds, the habitat of Bhairava, Śiva’s
wrathful form. I show that Bhīmasena’s iconography in Nepal, as perceived from at least
the seventeenth century onward, developed from South Indian prototypes. But whereas
in South India Bhīma is merely the epic hero and serves as a guardian, in Nepal he is also
worshipped as a divinity in his own right. This change of status and his identification with
Bhairava added specific features to his more complex iconographic forms.
Introduction
*
I would like to thank Gerd Mevissen for valuable comments on this paper and
Kashinath Tamot for fruitful discussions. I am indebted for help with photographic
material to Gerd Mevissen, Manik Bajracharya, Ellen Raven, Gerard Foekema
and Gudrun Melzer.
1 For general information on the worship of Bhīmasena in Nepal, see Regmi 1965–
1966, part 2, pp. 612–613, Lienhard 1978, pp. 174–175, Regmi 1980–1981, part 2, pp. 612–
613, Slusser 1982, volume 1, pp. 258–259 and Duijker 1998. For information specifically
on his worship in the city of Bhaktapur, see Levy 1990, pp. 252–254 and 421–422. Sax
1991, 1995 and 2002 analyze the worship of Bhīma and the Pāṇḍavas in the Pāṇḍavalīlā in
Garhwal, while Duijker 2001 and 2010 deal with representations of Bhīma on Java.
456 Gudrun Bühnemann
has been worshipped in Nepal at least since 1540,2 but the cult is likely to
be older. Devotional texts and inscriptions attest to the popularity of his
worship among both Hindus and Buddhists. Bhīmasena’s shrines and tem-
ples are common in today’s Nepal,3 and various iconographic forms of the
divinity are represented independently in paintings and line drawings, and
as woodcarvings and brass sculptures.
The deified Bhīmasena is worshipped in aniconic form in the sanctum of
an important temple in Dolakhā. In anthropomorphic form he appears as
1) the main divinity
a) as a solitary figure
b) or accompanied by one or more of his brothers and/or Draupadī and/
or with one or two (often gaunt) figures
c) or, like Śiva and Bhairava, flanked by Gaṇeśa and Kumāra4
2) or in a subordinate position, paired with Kubera,5 as a guardian on the
western façade of Śiva temples, at or near their entrances.
The unpublished ritual text Mohanacukayā hitiyāta busādhanasa āhuti biya
vidhi (“The method for making fire offerings to the [deities in the] fountain
of Mohancuka on its anniversary”), written in the Newari language, pre-
scribes fire oblations to be offered to the divinities at the sunken stepped
fountain in (Man)mohan courtyard in Kathmandu’s Hanūmānḍhokā Royal
Palace, and includes a mantra for the offering of an oblation to Bhīmasena,
invoked as Mahābhairava.6 The deity is called Bhīmabhairava in a large
number of ritual and devotional texts from Nepal preserved in manuscript
2 A copperplate inscription dating from 660 N.S. (= 1540 ce) refers to Bhīmasena’s
worship; see Regmi 1965–1966, part 2, p. 612.
3 For a list of thirteen Bhīmasena temples in Nepal, see Regmi 1972, p. 23.
4 See Slusser 1982, volume 2, Fig. 414 and Duijker 1998, p. 14 for two such represen-
tations.
5 For an early-eighteenth-century painting of a Śiva temple with these two divinities
as guardians, see Pal 1985, p. 74 (P 30). Shrestha 1987, p. 3 notes that it was customary
in the seventeenth century to install images of these two divinities as guardians of Śiva
temples. Bhīmasena and Kubera, labelled as Śiva’s guardians in the west, are depicted in
sketchbook 611–684 in the collection of Ian Alsop. The fact that Bhīmasena is considered
the guardian of the west is also evident from the Vaṃśāvalī of Guṇānanda, p. 125, which
reports that King Śivadevavarmā “brought Kāmēswara Bhīmasēna from the west, and
established him to the west of Pashupati”. This text (p. 215) records that Pratāpamalla
discovered a frightening stone image of Bhīmasena(bhairava) in a tank and placed it to the
west of his palace. The Vaṃśāvalī of Padmagiri, p. 75 also notes that Pratāpamalla “found
an image of Bhīma Bhairava in one of the tanks near his Darbar which he placed in a tem-
ple to the west of his Darbar near the Viṣṇumatī river”.
6 The passage in the text reads: bhīmasenayāta || bhāṃ bhīṃ bhūṃ [followed by a
kūṭākṣara, a mantra monogram] bhīmarājeśvaramahābhairavāya namaḥ ||.
Bhīmasena as Bhairava in Nepal 457
11 It is beyond the scope of this paper to deal in more detail with representations of the
epic hero Bhīma in South Asian art. Some information on these images can be found in
Duijker 2010, volume 1, pp. 30–33.
12 The representation of scenes from the Mahābhārata at Hoysala temples is discussed
in Evans 1997. For depictions of Bhīma with a club in hand as part of such scenes, see
Evans 1997, figs. 72, 79, 80, 100, 130, 136 and 150.
Bhīmasena as Bhairava in Nepal 459
In Nepal, in addition to the simple and pacific form, are found representa-
tions of Bhīma in a militant stance, towering over a slain enemy and pressing
him down with the knee of his bent left leg. Bhīma rips open the enemy’s
belly or chest with his left hand and either pulls out a long portion of his en-
trails with his right hand or else raises a club over him (Fig. 3). Individuals are
often unable to specify the enemy’s name in such representations, while oth-
ers are unsure whether he is Duryodhana (see, for example, Duijker 2010,
volume 1, p. 34), Duḥśāsana or Kīcaka. Such confusion is widespread, too, in
India, where there are many versions of the Mahābhārata. According to lo-
cal versions from South India, for example, Bhīma tears open Duryodhana’s
chest, and Draupadī—in fulfillment of a vow—uses his blood to dress her
hair and his intestines to bind or garland it (Hiltebeitel 1988, p. 21, note
16, pp. 306–307, 409, 432–433). Representations of Bhīma ripping out an en-
emy’s intestines refer in Nepal to Bhīma fulfilling a vow to kill Duḥśāsana,
who—supported by Duryodhana—had tried to disrobe Draupadī in public.
13 For recent discussions of puruṣamṛga representations in Indian art, see Branfoot
2002, Dallapiccola/Verghese 2002 and Wessels-Mevissen 2006 and 2009.
460 Gudrun Bühnemann
Verse 3 of a song in the Newari language, dating perhaps from the nineteenth
century, illustrates this. The hymn is quoted here in full in the translation of
Lienhard 1974, p. 148:
(Refrain:) Bhīmasena comes gladly, having destroyed his enemy’s body.
(People) came and stayed; he stopped being busy in order to accept (their)
worship. The whole ground is perfumed with the incense of gogula and
smoke. (1)
When various musical instruments sounded, it was terrible to listen to this
(sound). Gnashing his teeth, Bhīmasena leaps into battle. (2)
Opening his red eyes, kicking (him) angrily with his (bent) knee14 and
extracting his bowels: (Bhīmasena) slays Duḥśāsana. (3)
There is no one stronger than he. He drinks sufficient blood, (and) on the site
of his battle he makes a fire as (big as a fire) can be. (4)
(Easily) catching tigers and elephants between his legs, clasping lions under
his arms, and making horses fall flat to the ground, he moved there.
Who is not afraid? (5)
Let me, (Lord), dwell beneath your two feet, and make me attain liberation in
this (very) body and pay my homage as well as I can. (6)
In representations of the theme from
Nepal, Duḥśāsana is lying on his back
and sometimes holds a shield and a
broken sword. Brass statues depict-
ing this fierce form of Bhīma are sold
in the market as objects of worship.
Somewhat similar representations but
with Draupadī standing near Bhīma
and preparing to bind her hair can
already be found in South Indian
art. The theme is quite popular in the
twelfth/thirteenth-century Hoysala
temples.15 Thus the north niche of the
southern shrine of the twelfth-century
14 I have changed the plural form ‘knees’ in Lienhard’s translation to the singular, be-
cause it is grammatically appropriate and corresponds with iconographic representations.
15 For a brief discussion of the relations between Nepal and South India in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, see Michaels 1985.
Bhīmasena as Bhairava in Nepal 461
Hoysaleśvara Temple, Haḷebīd16 (Fig. 4) shows Bhīma pulling out the intes-
tines of a kneeling Duḥśāsana, and Draupadī about to take them in hand to
use for binding or garlanding her hair. The scene appears also on the north
face of the vestibule of the western sanctum of the late-twelfth- or early-thir-
teenth-century Hūcheśvara Temple at Haḷebīd (Evans 1997, p. 220); on a sec-
tion next to the west external niche of the middle temple of the Nāgareśvara
Temple complex, Haḷebīd, from the second half of the twelfth century (Ev-
ans 1997, p. 229); on the south face of the vestibule of the western sanctum of
the late-twelfth- or early-thirteenth-century Kedareśvara Temple at Haḷebīd
(Evans 1997, p. 238) and on the north side of the early-thirteenth-century
Īśvara Temple at Arsikere.17 It is also represented on the northern side of the
north-west corner of the hall of the Lakṣmīnārāyaṇa Temple, Hosaholalu
(Fig. 5) and on the eastern side of the northern cella of the Mallikārjuna
16 See Annual Report of the Mysore Archaeological Department for the Year 1930, p. 43
with Plate 13-2; Evans 1997, p. 204, Fig. 131; see also Evans 1997, p. 208.
17 See the Annual Report of the Mysore Archaeological Department for the Year 1930,
p. 66 for a reference.
462 Gudrun Bühnemann
Temple at Basarālu/Bas-
ral. It appears, further,
on a relief on Bhīma’s
Gate in Vijayanagara,
dating from the end of
the fifteenth century to © hampi.in
the beginning of the six-
teenth century (Dallapiccola/Verghese 1998, p. 25 and Plate 14) (Fig. 6).
Textual support for such representations is found in Pampa’s tenth-century
Bhārata, also known as Vikramārjunavijaya, written in the Kannada lan-
guage, wherein Draupadī vows that one day her hair will be bound with
Duḥśāsana’s intestines and Bhīma promises to make this wish come true (Si-
taramiah 1967, pp. 95–96). Bhīma subsequently slays Duḥśāsana, smears
Draupadī’s hair with his blood and garlands it with his intestines (Acharya
1981, pp. 293, 359–361). The theme of a divine figure disembowelling an en-
emy, be it noted, was already familiar from representations of Narasiṃha
slaying Hiraṇyakaśipu. These are widespread and older, and so must have
served as prototypes.
Digital Image © [2012] Museum Associates / LACMA. Licensed by Art Resource, New York.
sixteenth century) one of the figures holds a skull cup in the left hand and an
unidentified object in the right; the other figure raises the left hand and low-
ers the right hand, both of which are empty. A line drawing in sketchbook 412
in the collection of Ian Alsop, Santa Fe (Fig. 10) shows the two figures arriv-
Bhīmasena as Bhairava in Nepal 465
They are also seen, with their hands stretched out in a gesture of begging,
flanking Bhīmasena on one of the two tympanums in front of the shrine
room of this temple.
Such emaciated figures, begging or holding a skull cup and knife, are as-
sociated with charnel grounds, the habitat of Bhairava, Śiva’s wrathful (ugra)
form. They are referred to in texts and represented in art and often appear
in pairs (Ladrech 2010, p. 304) as Bhairava’s attendants. They can per-
form a variety of activities, including dancing, playing musical instruments,
worshipping with their hands in the añjali gesture or drinking blood from
skull cups. Texts label them variously as bhūtas, pretas, piśācas, vetālas,
grahas or mātṛs, among other categories (Ladrech 2010, pp. 304–307). An
eighteenth-century Nepalese painting26 (Fig. 12) features a small dark-blue
26 The painting, whose date corresponds to 1754/1755 ce, is part of the concertina-
style manuscript labelled “Navagrahasastra (Guide to the Planets)” and reproduced in:
Paintings on Paper: Nepalese Illustrated Manuscripts: An exhibition on view in conjunc-
tion with Asian Art in London, 1 November–16 November 2007, p. 27 (no. 6466).
468 Gudrun Bühnemann
The identification of Bhīmasena with Bhairava is not the only such case
in Nepal. It has a parallel in Bhīma’s half-brother Hanumān, who is likewise
considered Vāyu’s son. Hanumān’s Bhairava form is Hanū-Bhairava29 in Ne-
pal (Fig. 17). A large number of devotional and ritual texts in manuscript form,
including such titles as Hanū(mad)bhairavapūjāvidhi, Hanūbhairavastotra,
Hanūbhairavakavaca and Pañcamukhīvīrahanūbhairavastotra,30 are devoted
to the worship of the deity. Hanū-Bhairava (or Hanūmadbhairava) is a type
of five-headed (pañcamukha) Hanumān. The five-headed form, usually de-
scribed as seated or standing on a corpse, is already known from Sanskrit
29 There are numerous representations of Hanū-Bhairava in Nepal. For sculptures of
this form of Hanumān in the Patan Museum, see Slusser 2002, pp. 118, 120–121. See also
an inscribed painting in manuscript 10054 from Nepal, preserved in the collection of the
Bhārat Kalā Bhavan, Vārāṇasī and published in Pal 1970, Fig. 85 and Bhattacharyya
1980, Fig. 15. Several sculptures are found in Kathmandu’s Hanūmānḍhokā Royal Palace
but are as yet unpublished.
30 See the online title list of the NGMCP for more information on these texts.
472 Gudrun Bühnemann
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