Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois

BRAHMA, THE FOREMOST DEITY 613 attach to these gods, and which amount with them to Let us begin with the deity occupying the first rank in this extensive hierarchy. articles of faith. Brahma l . According to tradition, Brahma issued originally from a tamarasa 2 flower. He was born with five heads but he outraged Parvati, the wife of Siva, and Siva avenged himself by striking off one of the heads of the adulterous god in single combat. Consequently, Brahma is now represented with only four heads, and he is often called the four-faced god. He rides on a swan, and his emblem is a water-lily. His own daughter, Sarasvati, is his wife. Having conceived for her an incestuous passion, and not daring to satisfy it under the human form, he assumed that of a stag, and changed his daughter into a hind. It is for having thus violated the laws of nature that he has, so they say, neither temple nor worship nor sacrifice. Some pundits maintain, however, that the feeling of indifference evinced towards Brahma is caused by the malediction cast upon him by a certain penitent named Bunumi, who, on presenting himself for admission to the Abode of Bliss, was received with irreverence by the god. But whatever may be the ; The more common name for the one Spirit is At man or Para- matman, and in the later system, Brahman, neut. (nom. Brahma), derived from root brih, " to expand," and denoting the universally 1 ' expanding essence or universally diffused substance of the universe. It was thus that the later creed became not so much monotheistic (by which I mean the belief in one God, regarded as a Personal Being ex- ternal to the universe, though creating and governing it) as pantheistic — ; Brahman in the neuter being " simple infinite being " the only real eternal essence which, when it passes into universal manifested exist- ence, is called Brahma, when it manifests itself on the earth, is called Vishnu, and when it again dissolves itself into simple being, is called Siva all the other innumerable gods and demigods being also mere This, at manifestations of the neuter Brahman, who alone is eternal. any rate, appears to be the genuine pantheistic creed of India at the present day. Mother- Willi ams. 2 A species of lotus, or water-lily, Nymphaea lotus. It is well known how greatly this plant, which grows extensively in Egypt, in the canals that serve to conduct the waters of the Nile for watering and fertilizing the land, was held in veneration by the ancient Egyptians. Dubois. — ; '

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