Virabhadra
warrior avatar of Shiva
Virabhadra (Sanskrit: वीरभद्र, romanized: Vīrabhadra, lit. 'auspicious hero'), also rendered Veerabhadra, is a fierce form of the Hindu god Shiva. He is created by the wrath of Shiva, when the deity hurls a lock of his matted hair upon the ground, upon hearing of the self-immolation of his consort, Sati, at the Daksha yajna.
He appears in the Puranas as a vengeful being, attacking the deities who had attended the Daksha yajna with Bhadrakali. In the ensuing melee, Bhaga's eyes are plucked out, Agni, Mitra, and Chandra are also accosted. The fate of Daksha himself varies from text to text: Virabhadra either decapitates him, urges him to beg forgiveness from Shiva, or is saved temporarily by Vishnu, who defeats Virabhadra (but gets decapitated later).
Legend
Origin
Virabhadra was created by Shiva after Sati, Shiva's wife, immolated herself during the Daksha Yajña.
The origin of the Daksha Yajña legend lies in Taittirīya Samhita 2.6.8, where Rudra (later Shiva) was excluded from the sacrifice by the Devas, then Rudra pierced the sacrifice. Pushan lost his teeth and Bhaga got blinded. This legend is also mentioned in the Shatapatha Brāhmana of the Shukla Yajurveda and in the Gopatha Brāhmana of the Atharvaveda. The Gopatha Brāhmana version mentions Prajapati as the one who excluded Rudra from the sacrifice.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2672099. VIAF identifies the subject as 140309048. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Virabhadra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.