Guhya Vārāhī (Sanskrit गुह्य वाराही, IAST: Guhya Vārāhī) is the secret, hidden, and most concealed form of Bhagavatī Vārāhī as preserved within the living lineage of Siddha Dharma at Kaulantak Peeth in the Himalayas. The term guhya (गुह्य) means secret, hidden, or that which is not openly disclosed, and signals that this form holds the keys to the deeper workings of the Vārāhī principle that ordinary Vārāhī worship does not approach.

Etymology

Vārāhī (Sanskrit वाराही, IAST: Vārāhī) comes primarily from the Sanskrit word varāha (वराह), meaning boar, wild hog, or specifically the divine boar incarnation of Lord Vishnu known as Varāha. The feminine suffix -ī (ई) is added to form the feminine noun: varāha = boar; vārāhī = “the Boar Goddess,” “She who is boar-formed,” or “the feminine power (śakti) of the boar.” The roots vṛ / var can relate to covering, choosing, enclosing, or the power of manifestation depending on derivation. The boar itself in Vedic and Purāṇic symbolism is associated with rooting beneath the surface, lifting the Earth from primordial waters, penetrating hidden realms, and the forceful emergence of life and order from chaos. Vārāhī is therefore not a “pig-faced goddess” in the crude sense often presented in simplified descriptions; in Tantric symbolism she represents a primal penetrating intelligence — one that digs beneath appearances, uproots hidden tendencies, and moves through the dark substratum of existence.

In the broader Tantric and Śākta traditions, Vārāhī is one of the Mātṛkās — a group of seven (Sapta Mātṛkā) or eight (Aṣṭa Mātṛkā) mother goddesses — and is described as bearing the face of a sow. She is understood as the Śakti of Varāha, a fierce Yoginī, and a subterranean, chthonic, transformative force connected with instinct, earth, hidden power, and the dissolution of impurity and obstruction. In Nepal she is called Barahi; in Rajasthan and Gujarat she is venerated as Dandini.

Vārāhī Tattva, not Vārāhī Devī Alone

As per Siddha Dharma, when we speak of Vārāhī we are speaking of the Vārāhī tattva — the Vārāhī principle — and not only the goddess in her external form. Mahāsiddha Ishaputra teaches that whenever an incarnation or a deity arises, the powers embedded in that form are themselves arts (kalās), and those arts are the goddess’s true form. The principle is what runs through every stream of her origin and through every prayoga of her practice. The sādhaka who reaches only the form, and not the principle, cannot move in this Vidyā at all.

Vārāhī and the Role of Tamas

In Siddha Dharma, Vārāhī Devī is the full embodiment and diffuser of tamas throughout nature and the cosmos. The specialized tantra of Guhya Vārāhī reveals the indispensable role of tamas: it drives procreation (fundamentally tamasic yet resulting in sattvic life), enables destruction of the old to make way for the new, and powers the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Without tamas, there would be no forward momentum, no renewal, and no liberation from cycles of stagnation.

What sets Guhya Vārāhī apart from ordinary destructive forces is the purposeful, compassionate nature of her annihilation. Her destruction always serves elevation and ultimate freedom from tamas itself. She does not merely annihilate; she uproots limitations and then raises the practitioner to exalted states of awareness.

The Three Streams of Vārāhī’s Origin

As per Mahāsiddha Ishaputra , Vārāhī did not arise once. Three streams of her origin are described, and Guhya Vārāhī is the third and central of these.

The first is the Varāha avatāra of Lord Vishnu. Vārāhī did not appear as a separate goddess alongside the Varāha incarnation. She came as the kalā, the art and energy embedded within the avatāra itself. Every incarnation arrives with its own art-backup, and that art is the goddess. This stream is depicted in the blue Vishnu Vārāhī of the lineage’s three-form maṇḍala.

The second stream arose in the war of Mā Bhagavatī, when from her own body she generated the eight Mātṛkās as her companions in battle. From that generation, a Mātṛkā Vārāhī took form. This stream is depicted in the yellow Vārāhī of the Śākta-krama.

The third stream is Guhya Vārāhī herself. As per Siddha Dharma, she arose through the Gaṇa-rūpa of Lord Shiva at Mahā Kailāśa, in the dialogue of Āgama and Nigama. Mā Kurukullā asks Swacchand Bhairav why a Vārāhī origin is needed at all. He gives her the farmer’s-field example — when a kalpa exhausts itself, when creation has lost the capacity to produce anew, the farmer must dig and plough the earth so that fresh formation can rise from the same soil. The goddess who carries out that breaking and stirring of creation is Vārāhī. As Swacchand Bhairav transmits this knowledge, the form of Mā Pārvatī herself shifts. Her face becomes fierce, the form of Vaira and the boar, with two tusks emerging on either side of the boar mouth, and immense flames burst out behind her like a great explosion. The Siddhas, witnessing this form, recognized that something new had arisen in creation. This is Guhya Vārāhī.

Iconography

As per Siddha Dharma, Bhagavatī Guhya Vārāhī appears with three faces and four arms. The central face is the Varāha mouth, with sharp wide nostrils and two boar-tusks protruding on either side. Her body is like vajra, impenetrable. Behind her, flames burst out continuously, the explosive sign of fierce creation-and-breaking energy. Her complexion is sindoor red. As per Mahāsiddha Ishaputra , the tusks themselves carry the working of this Vidyā: with them Bhagavatī tears open the filth in which the sādhaka has fallen, and with them she eats that filth and consumes it within her, creating new ground from what she has eaten.

In her four arms, Bhagavatī holds the khaḍga (खड्ग), the sword, in her right upper hand, and the kamala-puṣpa, the lotus flower, in her right lower hand. In her left upper hand she holds auṣadhi, the medicinal healing herbs, and in her left lower hand the khappara, the skull-cup. As per Mahāsiddha Ishaputra , each of these is a teaching of the path. The auṣadhi and the khappara point to her role as the goddess who first frees the practitioner from disease, sorrow, sin, and anguish — establishing health as the floor upon which sādhanā can be done. The khaḍga and the lotus carry the dual character of the practice: the sword that cuts through what must be cut, and the lotus that opens at the end of the cutting. This is why a Vidyā that points toward mokṣa and mukti begins with jhāḍ-phūṅk and the grit of practical work; the form itself instructs the order.

The Two Core Virtues of Vārāhī Devī

As per Siddha Dharma, Vārāhī’s essence is distilled into two complementary virtues, vividly symbolized by her canine tusks.

Power to Uproot (Unmūlana Śakti). Represented by the upper canines, this is her capacity to violently yet precisely extract deep-seated obstacles, karmic imprints, ignorance, and limiting conditions from their roots. She shakes the very foundation of negativity, clearing the path for genuine progress.

Power to Elevate (Utkarṣaṇa Śakti). Symbolized by the lower canines, this merciful aspect raises consciousness, souls, or energies from lower, denser states to higher, subtler realms. Even while steeped in tamas, she compassionately guides beings beyond it toward liberation.

Guhya Vārāhī sādhanā revolves around these dual movements: first the fierce uprooting, then the graceful elevation — leading the practitioner from bondage to freedom.

The Three-Form Maṇḍala

As per Siddha Dharma, three forms of Vārāhī are held together in the lineage’s iconographic maṇḍala. At the centre is Guhya Vārāhī, of sindoor red colour, the main form. On her right is Vishnu Vārāhī, of blue colour, the form that came as the kalā of the Varāha avatāra. On her left is the Vārāhī of the Śākta-krama, of yellow colour, the Mātṛkā form born of Mā Bhagavatī’s war. Three Bhairavas accompany them: Vishnu Bhairav, the central Guhya Bhairav, and Shiva Bhairav. Three vehicles are also given for the three forms: the buffalo, the śṛgāla (jackal), and the Varāha. The Tāntrika is taught not to fix on the three external forms separately but to see the Vārāhī tattva that combines them — without that, the sādhanā cannot move.

Vajra Vārāhī

As per Siddha Dharma, Vajra Vārāhī is also held as a guhya, yogic form of Vārāhī. In the yogic operational gloss of the lineage, the very expansion of the nostrils to draw the breath in deeply — practised by the ancient Siddhas at the Amrit Velā in dense forests and on mountain peaks, the teacher pulling on the disciple’s nostrils to widen them — is called Vārāhī. When this same breath is then held at the Mūlādhāra by kumbhaka through Aśvinī mudrā, with vajra standing for the spine where the prāṇa is now seated, the breath thus locked is what is called Vajra Vārāhī. The body in this state becomes impenetrable as the vajra; no weapon could pierce her. Vajra Vārāhī is one of the inner doors of the Guhya Vārāhī Vidyā.

Worship Streams of Guhya Vārāhī

As per Siddha Dharma, Guhya Vārāhī is the chief goddess of the Shamans (Sham). She is also the principal goddess of Vāmācāra, and is adopted by Dakṣiṇācāra for a different purpose. The reason all three streams turn to her is the same: as per Mahāsiddha Ishaputra , she is the only goddess of the lineage who descends fully into the place of filth and pulls the practitioner out from there. The other devas and devīs, being sattvic, will only come up to the edge of that filth and offer a hand from above; they will not step into it. Guhya Vārāhī goes in.

The Vāmācāra path works specifically at the adho-mukha — the downward face, the place from which creation itself arises in the human, where the lower impulses of lust, anger, ego, and base desire dwell. Vāmācāra recognized that this is where the root problem lives, and that no other goddess will go there. So Vāmācāra adopted Guhya Vārāhī as its primary goddess, the one who can work at the root.

Dakṣiṇācāra adopts her for kāmya prayoga. As per Mahāsiddha Ishaputra , Bhagavatī Kurukullā is a goddess of equality and justice; if the sādhaka is beaten in a quarrel and runs to her crying, she will weigh the justice of it and may slap him back. Guhya Vārāhī does not weigh justice in this way. She sees that the sādhaka is in suffering, and if help is needed, she gives. For this reason Dakṣiṇa-mārga keeps her as the goddess to whom one may turn when help is needed quickly, without the test of equity.

The protector-devatā of Vajra Vārāhī Vidyā is Agni. The dīkṣā of this practice is given before fire, and is completed through the heat of fire.

The Mahāsiddhas of Guhya Vārāhī Vidyā

As per Siddha Dharma, two Mahāsiddhas carry the Guhya Vārāhī sādhanā in this paramparā: Mahāsiddha Ninayināth Jī and Mahāsiddha Aurokināth Jī. Their grand-guru is Mahāsiddha Koshirnāth Jī, one of the very foremost Siddhas of the lineage. Without taking the names of these Mahāsiddhas, no mantra of this sādhanā is fulfilled.

Mahāsiddha Ninayināth Jī was born in the plains, not in the Himalayas. The forest near his village was full of wild boars. One day a herd entered his family’s land, walked past the surrounding fields without disturbing them, and destroyed the middle field completely. The family blamed the local devatās. As a child, Ninayināth Jī gathered his friends and went into the forest to kill the boars. There, alone, he saw a single boar standing apart from the herd — divine, studded with jewels, wearing all manner of ornaments. As he placed his hand on this boar, the experiences of samādhi began to rise in him; his past lives appeared in his mind. He sat there in that state, and on returning home he remained in it for seven years without eating, drinking, or speaking ordinarily. A wandering yogi passing through told the family to send him to the Himalayas, where he met his guru, completed his discipline, and attained the state of Siddhattva. Mahāsiddha Ninayināth Jī follows the Dakṣiṇa-mārga and is the one who introduced the Shamanism dimension of this Vidyā — the use of the energy generated by Vārāhī sādhanā for the healing of physical, mental, and spiritual conditions in others.

Mahāsiddha Aurokināth Jī was born in the Himalayas, into a very wealthy and influential family. He lived a dissolute life of drinking and parties. Returning home one night through a forest, he heard movement in the bushes that he could not place. That night he dreamed of a massive Varāha causing universal destruction, breaking apart all of creation. The shamans told him a goddess in Varāha form was angry with him and that he should ask forgiveness. His ego refused. He went to a nearby Bhagavatī Vārāhī temple with his friends and bottles of liquor, drank inside, had the women remove their clothes and sit with their feet pointed at the mūrti, and mocked Bhagavatī. A holy man sitting nearby was laughing. Aurokināth Jī confronted him; an argument followed; he cut off the holy man’s head with his weapon. The body fell. He and his companions kicked the corpse and laughed. When he turned back, the holy man was alive again, standing, still laughing. Then the illusion came: huge magnificent boars began rising around him, growing larger and larger, until one rose up and swallowed the sun and another the moon. His friends, drunk, could not see this; only he could. Terrified, he fell at the holy man’s feet. The holy man told him Bhagavatī would not release him from this illusion now, and would not stop the destruction until the boar swallowed him too. He surrendered to Bhagavatī, vowed devotion for life, and the illusion dissolved. The same holy man became his guru and sent him to the Himalayas, where he completed his sādhanā. Mahāsiddha Aurokināth Jī follows the Vāma-mārga, and his teaching is that this practice should be used for the betterment of society.

Both Mahāsiddhas wrote the Varāha Tantra, in which both paths are laid out together.

Sādhanā

As per Mahāsiddha Ishaputra , no sādhaka can do the deeper sādhanā of Guhya Vārāhī while still afflicted by the doṣas and diseases that grip ordinary life. The body, mind, and prāṇa must first be cleared. For this reason the Vidyā begins not with theory but with jhāḍ-phūṅk — the working methods through which Vārāhī’s energy is applied for the cleansing and healing of others. The teaching here is direct: when the sādhaka does this work for others, the energy returns and clears the sādhaka as well. As per Siddha Dharma, the practitioner who sits down to chant mantras only for his own healing will not see the result; the result comes when he does this work for the suffering of another, and his own healing follows behind it.

The Pañca Prayoga — the five working methods through which jhāḍ-phūṅk is performed in this lineage — are part of this opening dimension of the practice. They include the Dhūmra-pātra (smoke vessel), the Jala-pātra (water vessel), Sparśa-vidhi (touch with consecrated wood, clay, or metal), Ucchāṭa-vidhi (the shock method), and Bhāva-Samādhi (the gathering and projection of the practitioner’s emotional charge through Bhagavatī’s grace). Each is taught directly under the guidance of the guru. They are extensive in their depth and cannot be acquired from a list; the sādhaka learns them only at the seat of Mahāsiddha Ishaputra .

For this reason the order of teaching in Guhya Vārāhī Vidyā is reversed from the ordinary lineage pattern. The practical work is taught first, dīkṣā follows when the guru sees the sādhaka has practised properly, and the deeper knowledge is given only when the disciple has reached the capacity to receive it.

Charyā

As per Siddha Dharma, the sādhaka of Guhya Vārāhī Vidyā keeps a set of daily disciplines at the seat of practice. Tripuṇḍa is applied with dry clay (sūkhī miṭṭī), with a kumkum or chandana tilaka placed on top of it; bhasma is used as a substitute when dry clay is unavailable. A reeṭhā mālā, the soapnut rosary, is worn as a discipline of the practice. A black mauli is tied on the right wrist as the sādhaka’s protection. The sādhaka sits in kaulācārī black vastra. The breath is regulated through nāsikā dhyāna with the Hum bīja, and a particular prāśya jala is prepared at the āsana to be used for ācamana and tarpaṇa during the work. These are the surface elements of the charyā that the sādhaka must establish; the inner detail, the consecrations, and the unsealing mantras are received directly from the guru and are not laid out openly.

Māyā Vidyā

As per Mahāsiddha Ishaputra , the Māyā Vidyā is the foundational tantra-vidyā that underlies all of Bhagavatī Vārāhī’s working. Tantra holds that what cannot be done in the gross world can be accomplished in the subtle, and the craft of working in the subtle itself is the Māyā Vidyā. The breath drawn in carries prāṇa; the mind held steadily projects intention; when breath and intention are joined together at the right point, an energy is produced that the practitioner can direct for healing, for protection, and at the higher levels for the bestowal of boons or the sending of curses. As per Siddha Dharma, the Māyā Vidyā is the base of all Tantric mantras, the base of every spiritual practice that uses inner power, the base of the art of giving blessing and the art of giving curse, and the base of the entire shaman order. It is given a yantric foundation in the Guhya Vārāhī Vidyā that the sādhaka receives at the time of initiation and meditates on daily. The full procedure of Māyā Vidyā is not laid out in writing; it is transmitted at the seat.

Bali

As per Siddha Dharma, bali is offered to Bhagavatī Guhya Vārāhī as part of the daily working of the practice. The bali in this Vidyā is a sushka bali — a dry offering — given through dry flour with a fixed mantra and a fixed number of repetitions, with the practitioner’s breath blown onto the offering after each repetition. The full method, like the rest of the practice, is received under the direct guidance of Mahāsiddha Ishaputra . What is important to know is the principle: this is not animal sacrifice but a symbolic gathering and surrender of the sādhaka’s own grossness into Bhagavatī’s mouth, where it is consumed.

Sumeru Pūjā

As per Siddha Dharma, the Sumeru pūjā holds a particular significance in the Guhya Vārāhī Vidyā. Sumeru is the cosmic mountain on which all the devas and devīs of the lineage dwell — the Guru Maṇḍala, the Yakṣas, Apsarās, Kinnaras, Gandharvas, Kirātas, Nāgas, Asuras, Gaṇas, and the entire Siddha host. The sādhaka shapes a small Sumeru from dry flour and offers it to Bhagavatī Vārāhī, with the inner declaration: if I had it to give, I would give you this Sumeru itself, the place where all gods dwell, because nothing of mine has any value before you. As per Mahāsiddha Ishaputra , this is the highest possible offering the sādhaka can make in symbolic form. The Sumeru pūjā is woven into the daily working at the practice seat and the patrī arrangement that accompanies it; the procedural detail is received from the guru.

Mahatmya — What Bhagavatī Gives

As per Mahāsiddha Ishaputra , Guhya Vārāhī’s mahatmya rests on what no other deity will do. Wherever a sādhaka has fallen into the place of filth — into the lust and anger and ego and pride that the design of the sense-being itself drags him into — there is no devatā who will come down into that filth to lift him out. The sattvic deities will reach only to the edge of it, hold out a hand, and wait. Guhya Vārāhī goes in. With her boar-tusks she tears open the filth itself, and with those same tusks she eats it. From what she has eaten, she creates new ground for the practitioner to stand on. This is her mahatmya.

She is also the goddess who eats sin. As per Siddha Dharma, even the heaviest sin — the sin of Brahmahatyā — she can take into her boar mouth and consume through her tusks, reducing it to ash within her. No other deity carries this capacity. The relief she gives is quick and direct, because Bhagavatī gives instant results; the sādhaka who turns to her sees the obstruction lift soon. This is one of the reasons the Mahāsiddhas of the lineage have kept her close.

The relief is, however, temporary. As per Mahāsiddha Ishaputra , this is the precise distinction between Guhya Vārāhī and Mā Pāpa Mocanī. Mā Pāpa Mocanī clears sin from the root, completing the karmic accounting; the process is slow and may extend across many births before the box is fully cleared. Guhya Vārāhī gives instant relief — the effect of the sin pauses, the obstruction lifts, the sādhaka can move forward in spiritual practice now. The example the Mahāsiddha gives is of a sādhaka whose hand has stopped working as the result of past sin: through Vārāhī’s grace, Bhagavatī can restart the hand, but the underlying sin remains and will return in time. The two practices are complementary. The sādhaka who wants final clearing turns to Mā Pāpa Mocanī. The sādhaka who needs to keep moving turns to Guhya Vārāhī.

This is also why both Vāma and Dakṣiṇa streams adopted her. The Vāmācārī works at the adho-mukha, the downward root where the lower impulses live, and only Guhya Vārāhī will work there. The Dakṣiṇācārī needs a goddess who will help without weighing justice, and only Guhya Vārāhī gives without the test of equity. In between these two streams stand the Shamans of the lineage, who use her for the healing of the three diseases — ādhidaihika, ādhibhautika, and ādhidaivika — for chāyā remedy, for the freeing of wandering subtle bodies, for communication with nature including the bringing and stopping of rain, for Dev-Śakti-Saṁvāda, for the destruction of the inner ignorance and the five vikāras, for rapid spiritual progress, for the stopping of the sādhaka’s wandering both physical and spiritual, and for the protection of the dīkṣā and the energy and knowledge the sādhaka has gathered through the practice.

How Siddha Dharma Knows Vārāhī

As per Siddha Dharma, Bhagavatī Vārāhī is known here in a depth and from an angle that the broader traditions do not approach. The Śaivite reading holds that Vārāhī originated in Kāśī. Siddha Dharma holds her origin — specifically the Guhya Vārāhī — at Mahā Kailāśa, in the Āgama-Nigama dialogue between Swacchand Bhairav and Mā Kurukullā. The fortress of her worship later spread mostly in the South, and was built up most strongly there.

In ordinary worship Vārāhī is approached as a deity. In Siddha Dharma she is approached as the tattva — the principle running through creation, of which the deity is the rūpa. As per Mahāsiddha Ishaputra , the sādhaka who reaches only the form, and not the principle, cannot move in this Vidyā at all. The mainstream traditions do not recognize the three streams of her origin held distinctly in this lineage, nor do they hold the central Guhya Vārāhī of the three-form maṇḍala as a separate śakti from the Mātṛkā Vārāhī and the Vishnu-incarnation Vārāhī.

The lineage also refuses to soften Bhagavatī’s form. As per Mahāsiddha Ishaputra , Vārāhī is shown with the boar face because the Siddhas refuse to hide what the form is teaching: that there is a default in the very manufacturing of the sense-being, dragging it toward attachment, lust, ego, and pride, and that the design itself carries this fault. When a person in deep anger or lust is observed, his very face takes on a pig-like form — the negative side of Vārāhī manifesting in the body of the sādhaka who has not yet been worked on. The form names the fault rather than concealing it. And the same goddess who carries this fault in her appearance is the one who, by entering the filth herself, can pull the practitioner out.