THE STORY OF VIRABHADRA | HOW THE WARRIOR POSES GOT THEIR NAME

THE STORY OF VIRABHADRASANA 1, 2, and 3 | The Warrior Poses

 

The “Virabhadra” of Virabhadrasana doesn’t actually translate to “warrior” from Sanskrit, but is rather the name of one very specific warrior, and the story behind him is super interesting. It’s another story about lord Shiva (I wrote about him and dancer’s pose yesterday). Here’s the version of the story I’ve been studying and teaching with my priestess in Bali.

 

 

In the Virabhadra story, Shiva was in love with Sati (a form of the goddess Parvati/Shakti–more on her tomorrow :).

 

 

Sati was the daughter of a great king named Daksha. But King Daksha didn’t particularly like Shiva. In fact, he did everything in his power to keep his daughter, Sati, away from her beloved Shiva. Through some clever trickery, Sati and Shiva ended up getting married against her father’s wishes, but King Daksha was never happy with his son-in-law.

 

One day, while Shiva was sitting on top of Mount Kailash (his holy site in the Himalayas) in deep meditation, King Daksha threw a ceremony at his palace, and he invited all of the gods to benefit from the sacrifice (yajna)–except for Shiva.

 

 

For Sati, this was the final straw. She went to her father’s ceremony and confronted him, asking him why her beloved Shiva had been excluded. In front of all the other gods, King Daksha insulted Shiva, telling Sati that he was unfit to be worshiped alongside the other gods.
 

This sent Sati into a rage, and right there in the middle of the sacrifice, she self-immolated, catching fire and falling to ash at her father’s feet.
 

 

Shiva and Sati’s love was so strong, that even from where he sat in meditation on top of Mount Kailash, Shiva could feel the death of his beloved, and he vowed to avenge her death. He instantly manifested a fierce warrior named Virabhadra to do his bidding and destroy Daksha’s yajna.

 

 

In some tellings, Shiva summoned Virabhadra from one of his dreadlocks, throwing the lock of hair into the mountain where it snaked its way underground and into the palace, becoming Virabhadra and rising up in front of King Daksha’s throne with sword drawn, in the stance of Warrior 1:

 

 

Then, in the stance of Warrior 2, Virabhadra chopped off King Daksha’s head:

And in the stance of Warrior 3, he planted Daksha’s head on a stake in front of all the ceremony guests:

 

 

Pretty metal, right?

 

 

But don’t worry–in the end, this is a story of love and forgiveness.

 

After an epic battle ensued, the goddess Sati reincarnated, determined to set things right. She calmed the warrior and called Shiva down from the mountain to make amends–after all, her father hadn’t killed her, she’d spontaneously combusted in rage. Her willingness to forgive her father assuaged Shiva, and he brought King Daksha back to life by replacing his head with the head of a goat.

 

Upon revival, Daksha (shockingly) bowed before Lord Shiva, saying that he had doubted the power of the love between Shiva and Sati, and now saw the truth of the depth of their union. He went on to worship Shiva as a supreme god for the rest of his life.

 

 

Crazy story, hey?

 

It’s often used as a metaphor for the killing of the ego–in this case, King Daksha representing our doubt in god/the universe (Shiva), and our tendency to put our own egos above our dharma. I know this is something I’ve noticed in my personal life recently; challenges that I saw as setbacks, changes that I fought kicking and screaming, ended up being exactly what I needed, and I now stand in a place where I can look back over the past few hard years and see that every step led me right to where I’m meant to be, as if the path had laid itself at my feet. So in the end, it’s a cautionary tale teaching us to trust in the divine/universe/nature/science/dharma, whatever you choose to call “that which is beyond us.”

 

 

Physically and energetically, something really cool happens when we take these shapes as the warrior poses in yoga. When we embody Virabhadra, we’re finding simultaneous strength and openness in our lower bodies, while also expanding and opening the solar plexus. Our solar plexus chakra (somewhere around the level of the lower ribs to the sternum) energetically is our power and confidence center. It’s one of the chakras for which we can feel the energy quite clearly. For example:

 

Have you ever been given the advice, before maybe a job interview or a public speaking opportunity, to stand like Wonder Woman? To puff out your chest, or to throw your arms out wide, or even to “man-spread” to feel more confident? If you try it right now–do a bit of a back-bend, lift your sternum, send your solar plexus forward etc.–you’ll instantly feel more confident. Isn’t Warrior II basically just extreme man-spreading?

 

 

When we feel scared or out of control or tired, we tend to take the opposite position–hunched up, even in the fetal position. So when we then choose to “explode” open like the warrior, we’re embodying the opposite of fear and tiredness. We’re allowing ourselves to be more courageous and awake. The strength in these poses literally allows us to “stand up” for others and for what we believe in.

 

Call it stimulating the energy of the manipura chakra, or embodying the warrior Virabhadra in his quest to avenge the death of Shiva’s love–either way, our sympathetic nervous system is activated in the warrior series in a way that allows us to feel more confident, alive, and powerful–just like a Warrior 🙂

Om Namah Shivaya

 

If you’d like to learn more, join me in Bali for a spiritual immersion and continuing education course called the Gods of Yoga, where you’ll get to experience ceremonies for these deities first hand.

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((Note that this story has been written about many places in various forms (in the Mahabarata, the Kurma Purana, etc.) as well as re-told aurally, re-written by later sages, and represented in many art forms, often with their own local traditions, so there are a lot of versions.))