Prajapati's relations with Brahman, Brhaspati and Brahma - DWC

sweat, sveda) on its forehead ... and, when it continued performing tapas,
from all the pores of its skin; by means of this sweat it started creating
the universe 2 •
Typically, the 'personification' of the Bráhman concept could appear in
the same context beside the neuter form of the word to indicate another
divine personality. "To the brahmin who knows that town that is surrounded
by freedom from death (amrta) Bráhman and Brahmä have given a full term
of life, renown and offspring" (TÄ. 1, 27, 3). Being connected by ... ca
. .. ca these names are regarded as complemental. Here SäyaJ}.a explains
the former name by Paramätman, "the supreme 'soul' or spirit", the latter
by Prajäpati. For practical purposes these identifications could of course
do 3.
So the places where a Vedic author wavers between Bráhman and Brahmä
are very few in number and do not furnish sufficient evidence to prove
the correctness of the opinion which seems to have been current for a long
time" - that Brahmä, the 'god', is nothingbut a personificationof Bráhman­
"the world-power out of which he emerged" (Hopkins) - a thesis which implies
the chronological priority of the latter concept. As argued elsewhere s ,
the data found in the ancient texts do not enable us to establish the probability
of this assumption .
2 According to GB. 1, 1, 16 (also PraQavaU. 1, Deussen, Sechzig Upan. , p. 859)
the (neuter) Bráhman created (or rather , emitted out of itself) the male Brahmä
on a lotus-Ieaf.
3 Such hesitations are not rare. In BhGïtä 3, 15 Brahman is said to have come
into existence from the Imperishable (ak~aram) which we encounter for the first
time in BAu. 3, 8, 8; that means that it is the link bet ween the eternal and the
tempora! (cf. R.e. Zaehner, The Bhagavad-gïtä, Oxford 1969, p. 192); in 8, 3
this Imperishable is, however, expressly identified with Brahman.
4 See, e.g. , R. Roth, in ZDMG 1 (1847), p. 85; E.W. Hopkins, Epic mythology,
Strassburg 1915 , p. 189; S. Radhakrishnan, Indian philosophy, I, London 1927
(1948), p. 102; H. von Glasenapp, Die Religionen Indiens, Stuttgart 1943, p.
143; W. Ruben, Die Philosophie der Upanisaden, Bern 1947, p. 228; P. Thieme,
in ZDMG 102 (1960), p. 135, n. 1.
5 Gonda, Notes on Brahman, p. 62 ff.; now see also Bailey, Brahmä, p. 4 f.
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