A brahmarakshasa (Sanskrit: ब्रह्मराक्षसः, romanized: Brahmarākṣasaḥ, pronounced [brɐʰmɐraːkʂɐsɐḥ]) is one of a class of rakshasas, a race of usually malevolent beings in Hinduism.
Since he had performed a sacrifice on behalf of an ostracised king, in the service of whom mantras were forbidden to be employed, he had been turned into a brahmarakshasa.
Having mastered the Vedas, Somadatta had grown arrogant from the knowledge he had acquired and his youth, due to which he stopped heeding his preceptor.
During his seventh birth, Viduratha was born as a brahmarakshasa, possessing sharp and curved fangs, a terrible mouth, and dried-up limbs, and subsisting on a diet of flesh and blood.
In most of the stories, they are depicted as huge, mean and fierce looking having two horns on head like a rakshasa and a lock of hair like a Brahmin and usually found hanging upside down on a tree.
After the being left, Mayurbhatta could peacefully create the hundred verses in praise of Surya, which cured him of leprosy.
[9] In many Hindu temples of Maharashtra and states of South India like Kerala and Karnataka, idols of brahmarakshasas are depicted in outer walls and are generally offered puja.