Kalabhairava Ashtakam — opening verse

The best-known hymn to Bhairava, and the one a visitor to Varanasi is most likely to hear. All eight verses end on the same refrain, kāśikāpurādhinātha-kālabhairavaṃ bhaje, which is what fixes the deity to the city. The attribution is worth stating carefully. This hymn is popularly credited to Adi Shankara, said to have composed it at Kashi, and that is how it is almost always printed. The attribution is traditional rather than established. A closely related recension is transmitted inside the Shivarahasya, in a Shiva–Parvati dialogue spoken by Ishvara, where the same verses are numbered 53 onward — and that recension differs in wording here and there, and orders the verses differently. Both are in print. `source_text` therefore names the hymn rather than asserting an author. Two details in the imagery repay attention. The serpent as yajñopavīta puts a snake where a brahmin's sacred thread belongs, on the deity who beheaded the source of the Vedas. And digambara — 'sky-clad' — is stated plainly rather than softened, which the tradition has never been embarrassed about.