Bhairava Purna Rupo Hi

This is the single most useful verse to know before reading anything else about Bhairava, because it settles a question that popular writing usually gets wrong. Bhairava is routinely described as an attendant of Shiva, a gaṇa, a subordinate fierce guardian. The literature of Bhairava itself says the opposite: he is the pūrṇa-rūpa, the complete form, of Shankara regarded as the supreme Self. The second line is unusually pointed. It does not say the distinction between Shiva and Bhairava is subtle or a matter of emphasis; it says those who hold it are mūḍha, deluded, and that the delusion is produced by Shiva's own māyā. The Shiva Purana makes the same claim in the section where Bhairava appears. This is also the doctrinal ground of the Kashmir Shaiva position, where Bhairava is not an aspect of the Absolute but its name — para brahman under the term that means 'the frightful'.