ORIENTAL SERIES.

BRAHMA. 57
in religious services, but Pushkara (hodie Pokhar), near Ajmir,
is the only place where he receives worship, though Professor
Williams states that he has heard of homage being paid to him
at Idar.
Brahma is said to be of a red colour. He has four heads ;
originally he had five, but one was burnt off by the fire of iva's
central eye because he had spoken disrespectfully. Hence he is
and Ash/a-
called Chatur-anana or Chatur-mukha, '
four-faced, 3
He has four arms ;
karrca, c
3
eight-eared.
and in his hands he
holds his sceptre, or a spoon, or a string of beads, or his bow
Parivita, or a water jug, and the Veda. His consort is Saraswati,
goddess of learning, also called Brahml His vehicle is a swan
or goose, from which he is called Hansa-vahana. His residence
is called Brahma-vraida.
The name Brahma is not found in the Vedas and BrahmaTias,
in which the active creator is known as Hira^ya-garbha, Praja-
pati, &c. ; but there is a curious passage in the $atapatha Brah-
"
mawa which : says He (Brahma, neuter) created the gods.
them in these worlds : in this
Having created the gods, he placed
world Agni, Vayu in the atmosphere, and Surya in the sky."
Two points connected with Brahma are remarkabla As the
father of men he performs the work of procreation by incestuous
intercourse with his own daughter, variously named Vach or
Saraswati (speech), Sandhya (twilight), jSata-rupa (the hundred-
formed), &c. Secondly, that his powers
as creator have been
arrogated to the other gods Vishnu and $iva, while Brahma has
been thrown into the shade. In the Aitareya Brahmawa it is said
that Prajapati was in the form of a buck and his daughter was
Kohit, a deer. According to the $atapatha Brahmana and Manu,
the supreme soul, the self-existent lord, created the waters and
deposited in them a seed, which seed became a golden egg, in
which he himself was born as Brahma, the progenitor of all the
worlds. As the waters (na.ro) were " the place of his movement,
he (Brahma) was called NarayaTwu" Here the name Narayana is
referred distinctly to Brahma, but it afterwards became the name
of Vishmi. The account of the Kamaya^a is that " all was water
only, in which tfte earth was formed. Thence arose Brahma, the
self-existent, with the deities. He then, becoming a boar, raised
up the earth and created the whole world with the saints, his
sons. Brahma, eternal and perpetually undecaying, sprang from