In the mystical circle of the 64 Yoginis—those wild, radiant emanations of Shakti who embody the raw, elemental spectrum of feminine power—there is one whose form cannot be captured, whose essence defies boundaries. She is Bahurupa, the Multi-formed One, a living embodiment of the cosmic play of appearances. To invoke her is not to cling to a form, but to dissolve into the freedom of formlessness.
Shri Bahurupa Jai Bahurupa
The Many Who Are One
Bahurupa—her name literally means “many forms.” Yet what she represents goes far beyond multiplicity. She is not just a goddess with multiple heads or limbs. She is the dance of creation itself, the constant shape-shifting of energy, time, identity, and reality. Where one sees opposites—light and dark, terror and tenderness, movement and stillness—Bahurupa sees flow. She is the paradox that holds everything in harmony.
Unlike Yoginis who stand as guardians of specific elements or cosmic principles, Bahurupa is the very current that runs through them all. In many depictions from Yogini temples such as Hirapur and Ranipur-Jharial, she appears with five heads, each gazing in a different direction—representing the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, space) or the five layers of human consciousness (koshas). Her form radiates divine contradiction, blurring the line between goddess and universe.
A Form That Defies Form
Bahurupa’s iconography is intentionally elusive. In one moment she may appear serene and radiant; in the next, fierce and wild. Her five heads allow her to perceive all directions, all timelines. Each eye sees not the surface, but the soul beneath. Her eight arms hold symbols of her endless functions:
- Upper right: A mirror – symbol of illusion (maya) and the truth that every face is hers.
- Lower right: A serpent – awakened kundalini, slithering through all forms of life.
- Upper left: A skull-cup – representing transformation through dissolution.
- Lower left: A lotus – the bloom of divinity through shifting realities.
- Other hands: Trident, bell, chakra, dagger – tools of cutting through illusion and aligning with essence.
Her garments shift from clouds to bones, from fire to starlight. Her presence is not meant to comfort—it is meant to awaken. She appears not to impose an identity, but to shatter the false one we wear.
Embodiment of the Cosmic Dance
In Tantric vision, Shakti is not static. She is movement, and Bahurupa is this movement unbound. She is the divine shapeshifter who appears to the seeker as dream, flame, lover, storm, or silence. She teaches that form is sacred—but not fixed. That truth wears many veils. That we, too, are Bahurupa in human clothing.
Her worship is not about devotion to a fixed image. It is about surrendering into the sacred flow of life’s ever-changing theater. In this way, she resonates deeply with the lived human experience: our many roles, masks, moods, and seasons. Just as the moon waxes and wanes, just as rivers bend and change course, so too does the soul grow by shifting.
The Yogini of Shifting Identity
Bahurupa stands apart in the Yogini circle not because she is supreme, but because she is every Yogini, and yet none. She is the Yogini between the Yoginis—the interstitial Shakti who holds together the polarities of the circle.
In sacred sadhanas, she comes to the seeker when life feels liminal. When identity dissolves. When one is between chapters, between worlds. She is the whisper in chaos that says: “You are not breaking. You are becoming.”
To sit with Bahurupa is to face the parts of oneself that are fluid, uncertain, evolving. She teaches that the soul is not a statue—it is a dance. And in that dance, everything belongs.
Mystical Role in the Inner Journey
The Yoginis are not external gods waiting to be pleased—they are archetypal energies within the seeker, facets of consciousness that awaken us to our own divinity. Bahurupa, especially, is the Yogini of self-remembrance through change. Her message is simple: Do not resist transformation. Do not hold one face too tightly.
In dreamwork, meditation, or periods of deep spiritual practice, Bahurupa often appears to those ready to relinquish their false identities and embrace their multiplicity. She is not always gentle—her gift is clarity, and that clarity often arrives through profound shifts.
Yet her presence is ultimately freeing. She offers us the strength to inhabit all our forms, to grow without guilt, to die and be reborn again and again in one lifetime—each time closer to truth.
Bahurupa is not the goddess of one thing. She is the goddess of everything. She doesn’t offer answers—she invites you into the mystery. To know her is not to pin her down, but to allow her to move through you. She reminds us that we are not bound to one self, one role, one truth.
To invoke Bahurupa is to invite divine transformation, to honor the shapeshifting nature of your own soul, and to walk through the world with reverence for its many faces—each one a form of the formless.
Shri Bahurupa Jai Bahurupa
We hope you’ve been inspired by the mystical journey through the Elemental & Cosmic Yoginis — radiant emanations of the universe’s primal essence. Now, we enter a more fiery domain: the realm of the Warrior & Fierce Yoginis — embodiments of divine rage, protection, and transformative power.
Many fierce goddesses have already revealed themselves in our path, especially through the sacred lens of the Ashta Matrikas, where we explored Chamunda, Pratyangira, Narsimhi, Bhairavi, and Rudrani — each a blazing guardian of dharma.
Up next, we turn our gaze to three more powerful manifestations: Krodhini, Charchika, and Shivaduti — Yoginis who stride through the battlefield of illusion with unshakable will and blazing grace.
The fire deepens. Stay with us.