Stotra · स्तोत्रStotra

Kalabhairava Ashtakam — verse 2

Radiant as ten million suns and the ferry across the ocean of becoming: the second of the eight verses to the lord of Kashi.

Kalabhairava Ashtakam verse 2edition

Kaal Bhairav ·Shiva

Sanskrit · संस्कृत

भानुकोटिभास्वरं भवाब्धितारकं परं नीलकण्ठमीप्सितार्थदायकं त्रिलोचनम् । कालकालमम्बुजाक्षमक्षशूलमक्षरं काशिकापुराधिनाथकालभैरवं भजे ॥

bhānukoṭibhāsvaraṃ bhavābdhitārakaṃ paraṃ nīlakaṇṭhamīpsitārthadāyakaṃ trilocanam । kālakālamambujākṣamakṣaśūlamakṣaraṃ kāśikāpurādhināthakālabhairavaṃ bhaje ॥

Read in another script

Meaning

Blazing like ten million suns, the ferry across the ocean of becoming, the supreme one; blue-throated, giver of the thing desired, three-eyed; the Time of Time himself, lotus-eyed, bearing the trident, imperishable — I worship Kala Bhairava, lord of the city of Kashi.

This rendering is by a DharmSetu editor, not a quotation from a published translation. Compare with the public-domain translation.

A Hindi meaning has not been written for this mantra yet. Hindi is authored by a named editor rather than machine-translated, so it arrives more slowly.

How to recite

Four lines, sixteen beats each read aloud in a swinging trochaic pulse — BHĀ-nu-KO-ṭi-BHĀS-va-raṃ. bhavābdhi is bhava + abdhi, 'the ocean of becoming', so the join is bha-VĀB-dhi and not bhavā-bdhi. īpsitārtha is īpsita + artha; the long ī at the start is what distinguishes it from ipsita. In ambujākṣam the kṣ is a single conjunct, closer to the 'ksh' of 'freakshow' than to two syllables.

Repetitions: 1 · 3
Time: brahma muhurta, sandhya

Pronunciation key — sounds commonly got wrong

ट ठ ड ढ ण · ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ: Retroflex — the tongue curls back and touches the roof of the mouth. Distinct from the dental त थ द ध न, where the tongue touches the teeth.
श ष स · ś ṣ s: Three different sounds: ś as in “shy”, ṣ retroflex and further back, s plain. Collapsing them changes words.
ः · ḥ (visarga): A soft outward breath echoing the preceding vowel — not a hard “ha”.
ं · ṃ (anusvara): Nasalises the vowel; the closing sound follows the consonant that comes next.
Long vs short vowels — a / ā, i / ī, u / ū: Vowel length is meaningful in Sanskrit. Hold the macron vowels roughly twice as long.
Aspirated consonants — kh, gh, ch, th, dh, ph, bh: A distinct puff of breath. ph is an aspirated p, never an English “f”.

Word by word

भानुकोटिभास्वरम्bhānukoṭibhāsvaram: blazing like ten million suns(acc. sg.)
भवाब्धितारकम्bhavābdhitārakam: the ferry across the ocean of becoming(acc. sg.)
परम्param: supreme(acc. sg.)MW1899-CDSL p.586
नीलकण्ठम्nīlakaṇṭham: the blue-throated one(acc. sg.)MW1899-CDSL p.566
ईप्सितार्थदायकम्īpsitārthadāyakam: giver of the thing desired(acc. sg.)
त्रिलोचनम्trilocanam: three-eyed(acc. sg.)MW1899-CDSL p.460
कालकालम्kālakālam: the Time of Time; death of death(acc. sg.)

Context

The verse is built on a single sustained image: light. bhānu-koṭi-bhāsvaraṃ places ten million suns behind a deity whose iconography is otherwise cremation-ground dark, and the hymn does not reconcile the two — it simply holds both, which is characteristic of Bhairava literature. kāla-kālam is the phrase that carries the theology. Kāla is time, and it is also death; to call Bhairava the kāla of kāla is to place him where time itself ends. The Shiva Purana makes the same claim narratively in Shatarudra Samhita 3.8.47, where Shiva tells him that even Kāla will fear him and that this is why he is named Kālabhairava. The third line runs on a deliberate chain of ak- sounds — ambujākṣam, akṣaśūlam, akṣaram — which is a sound effect, not a coincidence. akṣaśūlam is the one genuinely contested compound in the hymn: it is read as 'whose weapon is the trident', as 'trident-on-its-axle', and as a compound of akṣa (the rudrākṣa or the die) with śūla. The rendering above takes the plainest of the three and the ambiguity is recorded rather than hidden.

Shadanga — the six limbs

The traditional analytic frame for a mantra. Blank limbs are simply not recorded for this text.

devata: Kala Bhairava

Recited at / traditionally recited for

Dhyana (meditation)Protection (raksha)Peace (shanti)

Classified as Stotra — Devotional hymn literature — praise poetry rather than a Vedic formula. Basis for this classification.

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