BRAHMĀ. - Belief in B., Brahman (v.), after having been alive in India throughout the epic age (4th century B.C.–4th century A.D.), Hinduism (v.). Two deities of little importance in the Rgveda, Viṣṇu and Rudra-Śiva, were associated with him in worship from the 5th century onward, and in the triad (trimūrti) thus formed, B. is equal to his counterparts only nominally. Born of theological speculation, the god B. was never popular, and only one temple appears to be dedicated to him in all India, at Pokkar (Puṣkara) near Ajmer, in Rājputāna. In the oldest parts of the Mahābhārata, however, B. is regarded as the creator of men and gods, who are subject to him. On the occasion of the churning of the ocean
no (Mahābhārata, I, 18), he orders Viṣṇu to restore strength to the exhausted gods, and Śiva to swallow the kālahāta poison, in order to preserve the world from destruction. As the First Cause of the universe, B. is the Self-Begotten (suvyambhā), and the code of Manu (v. DHARMA-SĀSTRA) relates his creation as follows (1, 5 ff.): “The Self-Begotten arose from primordial chaos; he created the waters and deposited in them a seed which became a golden egg, from which he himself was reborn as B. or Hiraṇyagarbha.” Sarasvatī, the ancient goddess of river waters, identified with Vāc, became B.’s consort in the epic age. In the texts of Pāli Buddhism, B. assumes the obscure epithet Sahāmpati and continues to hold supremacy over the other gods.