Bhīmasena as Bhairava in Nepal* By Gudrun Bühnemann, Madison (Wisconsin) Summary: Bhīmasena, the second of the ive Pṇava brothers in the Mahbhrata, 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 inluence of Tantrism. I especially focus on representations of Bhīmasena slaying Duḥśsana, in which he is accompanied by two small emaciated igures 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 identiication with Bhairava added speciic features to his more complex iconographic forms. Introduction Bhīmasena, the second of the ive Pṇava brothers in the Mahbhrata, there portrayed as a redoubtable warrior, is worshipped in Nepal as a form of Śiva or, more precisely, as Bhairava.1 Referred to as ‘Bhīmsen’, he is es- pecially popular among the Newar trading community, which worships his images on small altars in shops. Inscriptional evidence shows that Bhīmasena * 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 speciically 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 Pṇavas in the Pṇavalīl in Garhwal, while Duijker 2001 and 2010 deal with representations of Bhīma on Java.