BrahmĀ
BRAHMĀ is the creator in Hindu mythology; sometimes he is said to form a trinity with Viṣṇu as preserver and Śiva as destroyer. Yet Brahmā does not have the importance that creator gods usually have in mythology, nor is his status equal to that of Śiva or Viṣṇu. Though Brahmā appears in more myths than almost any other Hindu god, as the central figure in quite a few, and as a bit player in many more, he was seldom worshiped in India; at least one important version of the myth in which Śiva appears before Brahmā and Viṣṇu in the form of a flaming phallus explicitly states that Brahmā will never again be worshiped in India (to punish him for having wrongly sworn that he saw the tip of the infinite pillar). Brahmā's ability to create is little more than an expertise or a technical skill that he employs at the behest of the greater gods; he is called upon whenever anyone is needed to create something, or even to create a pregnant situation—to give power to a potential villain so that the action of the conflict can unfold. But if one were to create a functional trinity of gods who wield actual power in Hindu mythology, one would have to replace Brahmā with the Goddess.
Brahmā's mythology is derived largely from that of the god Prajāpati in the Brahmāṇas. Unlike Brahmā, Prajāpati is regarded as the supreme deity, and he creates in a variety of ways: he casts his seed into the fire in place of the usual liquid oblation; he separates a female from his androgynous form and creates with her through incestuous intercourse; or he practices asceticism in order to generate heat, from which his children are born. In this way he creates first fire, wind, sun, moon; then all the gods and demons (the devas and asuras, who are his younger and older sons); then men and animals; and then all the rest of creation. In the epics and Purāṇas, when Brahmā takes over the task of creation he still uses these methods from time to time, but his usual method is to create mentally: he thinks of something and it comes into existence. While he is under the influence of the element of darkness (tamas) he creates the demons; under the influence of goodness (sattva) he creates the gods. Or he may dismember himself, like the Ṛgvedic cosmic man (Puruṣa), and create sheep from his breast, cows from his stomach, horses from his feet, and grasses from his hairs. Paradoxically (or perversely), he usually employs less abstract methods (such as copulation) to produce the more abstract elements of creation (such as the hours and minutes, or the principles of logic and music).
Brahmā's name is clearly related both to brahman, the neuter term for the godhead (or, in earlier texts, for the principle of religious reality), and to the word for the priest, the brahmāṇa. In later Hinduism Brahmā is committed to the strand of Hinduism associated with pravṛtti ("active creation, worldly involvement") and indifferent, or even opposed, to nivṛtti ("withdrawal from the world, renunciation"). He therefore comes into frequent conflict with Śiva when Śiva is in his ascetic phase, and competes with Śiva when Śiva is in his phallic phase. Brahmā's unilateral attachment to pravṛtti may also explain why he alone among the gods is able to grant the boon of immortality, often to demon ascetics: he deals only in life, never in death. This habit unfortunately causes the gods serious problems in dealing with demons, who are usually overcome somehow by Śiva or Viṣṇu. Immortality (or release from death) is what Brahmā bestows in place of the mokṣa (release from rebirth and redeath) that Śiva and Viṣṇu may grant, for these two gods, unlike Brahmā, are involved in both pravṛtti and nivṛtti. This one-sidedness of Brahmā may, finally, explain why he failed to capture the imagination of the Hindu worshiper: the god who is to take responsibility for one's whole life must, in the Hindu view, acknowledge not only the desire to create but the desire to renounce creation.
Indian Religions, Article on Mythic Themes; Prajāpati; ŚIva.
Bibliography
The best study of Brahmā is Greg Bailey's The Mythology of Brahmā (Oxford, 1983), which also contains an extensive bibliography of the secondary literature. Many of the relevant texts are translated in my Hindu Myths (Baltimore, 1975), pp. 25–55, and interpreted in my Śiva: The Erotic Ascetic (Oxford, 1981), pp. 68–77 and 111–140.
New Sources
Mishra, Rajani. Brahma-Worship, Tradition and Iconography. Delhi, 1989.
Nagar, Shanti Lal. The Image of Brahma in India and Abroad. Delhi, 1992.
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