Brahma

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For for the Buddhist deity, see Brahmā (Buddhism).
Since first she lisped the mighty Brahmah’s name ~ Thomas Skinner

Brahma (|Sanskrit: ब्रह्मा; IAST: Brahmā) is the Hindu god (deva) of creation and one of the Trimūrti, the others being Vishnu and Shiva. According to the Brahmā Purāṇa, he is the father of Manu, and from Manu all human beings are descended. In the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, he is often referred to as the progenitor or great grandsire of all human beings. He is not to be confused with the Supreme Cosmic Spirit in Hindu Vedānta philosophy known as Brahman, which is genderless. Brahmā's wife is Saraswati. Saraswati is also known by names such as Sāvitri and Gāyatri, and has taken different forms throughout history. Brahmā is often identified with Prajāpati, a Vedic deity. Being the husband of Saraswati or Vaac Devi (the Goddess of Speech), Brahma is also known as "Vaagish," meaning "Lord of Speech and Sound."

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
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A[edit]

  • God creates the world as Brahma, sustains it as Vishnu, and destroys it as Shiva. One day, Shiva started to sing. Vishnu was so moved by the melody that he began to melt. Brahma caught the molten Vishnu in a pot. This was poured on earth. it took the form of the river Ganga. The Ganga nourished the earth. to bathe in the Ganga’s waters is to bathe in God.
  • At the muezzin's call for prayer,
    The kneeling faithful thronged the square,
    And on Pushkara's lofty height
    The dark priest chanted Brahma's might.
    Amid a monastery's weeds
    An old Franciscan told his beads;
    While to the synagogue there came
    A Jew to praise Jehovah's name.
    The one great God looked down and smiled
    And counted each His loving child;
    For Turk and Brahmin, monk and Jew
    Had reached Him through the gods they knew.
  • I am the dweller with the one high God,
      And God himself dwells here, unseen, with me!
    He is embodied in the meanest clod,
      And he exists in every stone and tree.
    Man thinks he slays me, saying, God is naught:
      For chance first framed and still creation sways:
    I am the chance he worships in his thought,
      And I am all to which he homage pays.
    “As milk to curd, as water is to ice,”
      So do I change my ever-changing form;
    I am fair virtue, I am hideous vice,
      I am the sunshine and the raging storm.
    All things to me, how far soe’er they seem,
      Are near, for I am earth, air, water, fire;
    The life of man is but a “fitful dream,”
      And all created things to me aspire.
    Many may doubt,—’tis I who gave them thought
      With which they vainly think from me to flee,—
    Dispel illusions! seek me as you ought!
      Say “I am Brahma”—in thyself find me.
    Wouldst thou this riddle read? I am the Soul,
      Whence both the known and unknown have their start,
    And I am God, for God is but the whole,  Of which all souls form each an equal part.
    • Anonymous, "Brahma"; reported in: W. W. Longfellow, ed., Poems of Places, Vol. 21 (1878), p. 51

B[edit]

  • BRAHMA, n. He who created the Hindoos, who are preserved by Vishnu and destroyed by Siva — a rather neater division of labor than is found among the deities of some other nations. The Abracadabranese, for example, are created by Sin, maintained by Theft and destroyed by Folly. The priests of Brahma, like those of Abracadabranese, are holy and learned men who are never naughty.

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E[edit]

  • If the red slayer think he slays,
      Or if the slain think he is slain,
    They know not well the subtle ways
      I keep, and pass, and turn again.
    Far or forgot to me is near;
      Shadow and sunlight are the same;
    The vanish’d gods to me appear;
      And one to me are shame and fame.
    They reckon ill who leave me out;
      When me they fly, I am the wings;
    I am the doubter and the doubt,
      And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
    The strong gods pine for my abode,
      And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
    But thou, meek lover of the good!
      Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.
    • Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Brahma"; first published in The Atlantic (November 1857); variants: st. 3: "I am" for "And I"
  • So it is that bird and man, Sun and moon Are born and die in Brahma the Sacred–Where all things become one.
    • Mihai Eminescu, "Tattwamasi", quoted in: Gewali Salil, Great Minds on India (New Delhi: Penguin Random House, 2013)

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I[edit]

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K[edit]

  • Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,
        And all his priesthood moans,
    • John Keats, "Song of the Indian Maid" in Endymion (1818)

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N[edit]

O[edit]

P[edit]

  • The knowers of ancient things call this Purana Brahma Vaivarta because in it Brahman (I Khanda [chapter]) and the Universe (II Khanda) are unfolded by Krishna. The actual structure of the Brahma and the Prakriti khandas, is a further corroboration that in the word ‘Brahma-Vivarta’ what is meant is Brahman and not Brahma. It is the Purana of manifested Brahmin, which seems to be comprehensive of all topics of the Purana.
...Purusha was personified as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva while Prakriti was personified as Saraswati, Lakshmi and Shakti. - Devdutt Pattanaik.

Q[edit]

R[edit]

  • The individual self is subject to beginningless nescience, which has brought about an accumulation of karma, of the nature of both merit and demerit. The flood of such karma causes his entry into four kinds of bodies — heavenly, human, animal and plant beginning with that of Brahma downwards. This ingression into bodies produces the delusion of identity with those respective bodies (and the consequent attachments and aversions). This delusion inevitably brings about all the fears inherent in the state of worldly existence.
  • Soul means Brahma; and the Brhmajnan flows through soul to the intellect. That is termed Atmajnan. Thus Soul (Atma), Brahma, and Om have same meaning.
  • I am the mote in the sunbeam, and I am the burning sun;
    “Rest here!” I whisper the atom; I call to the orb, “Roll on!”
    I am the blush of morning, and I am the evening breeze;
    I am the leaf’s low murmur, the swell of the terrible seas;
    I am the net, the fowler, the bird and its frightened cry,
    The mirror, the form reflected, the sound and its echo, I;
    The lover’s passionate pleading, the maiden’s whispered fear,
    The warrior, the blade that smites him, his mother’s heart-wrung tear;
    I am intoxication, grapes, wine-press, and must and wine,
    The guest, the host, the tavern, the goblet of crystal fine;
    I am the breath of the flute, I am the mind of man,
    Gold’s glitter, the light of the diamond, and the sea-pearl’s lustre wan,
    The rose, her poet nightingale, the songs from his throat that rise,
    Flint sparks, the taper, the moth, that about it flies.
    I am both Good and Evil; the deed and the deed’s intent,
    Temptation, victim, sinner, crime, pardon and punishment,
    I am what was, is, will be; creation’s ascent and fall;
    The link, the chain of existence; beginning and end of all.
    • Rumi, translated by F. F. Ritter; reported in: W. W. Longfellow, ed., Poems of Places, Vol. 21 (1878), p. 49

S[edit]

  • The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still.

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V[edit]

...Guru is the creator Brahma, Guru is the preserver Vishnu, Guru is the destroyer Shiva. Guru is directly the supreme spirit — I offer my salutations to this Guru. - Adi Shankara.
  • In every third world age (Dvapara), Vishnu, in the person of Vyasa, in order to promote the good of mankind, divides the Veda, which is properly but one, into many portions. Observing the limited perseverance, energy, and application of mortals, he makes the Veda fourfold, to adapt it to their capacities; and the bodily form which he assumes, in order to effect that classification, is known by the name of Veda-vyasa. Of the different Vyasas in the present Manvantara and the branches which they have taught, you shall have an account. Twenty-eight times have the Vedas been arranged by the great Rishis in the Vaivasvata Manvantara... and consequently eight and twenty Vyasas have passed away; by whom, in the respective periods, the Veda has been divided into four. The first... distribution was made by Svayambhu (Brahma) himself; in the second, the arranger of the Veda (Vyasa) was Prajapati... (and so on up to twenty-eight).

W[edit]

  • Magnifying and applying come I,
    Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,
    Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,
    Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,
    Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,
    In my portfolio placing Manito loose,Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved,
    With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image,
    Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more,
    Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days,
    (They bore mites as for unfledg'd birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves).
  • Brahma Purana is the whole of which was formerly repeated by Brahma to Marichi and contains ten thousands stanzas. In all the lists of Puranas, Brahma Purana is placed at the head of the series, and is thence sometimes also entitled to Adi or ‘First’ Purana. It is also designated as Saura, as it is in great part appropriated to the worship of Surya, the ‘sun’. There is a supplementary or concluding section called the Brahmottara Khanda, which contains about three thousand more; but there is every reason to conclude that this a distinct and unconnected work...The immediate narrator of the Brahma Purana is Lomaharshana, who communicates it to the Rishis or sages assembled at Naimisharanya, as it was originally revealed by Brahma, not to Marichi as the Matsya affirms, but to Daksha, another of the patriarchs: hence the denomination of the Brahma Purana.
  • Brahmananda Purana, has declared in twelve thousand two hundred verses, the magnificence of the egg of Brahma, and in which an account of the future Kalpa is contained, as was revealed by Brahma. It is usually considered to be in much the same predicament as Skanda, no longer procurable in a collective body, but represented by a variety of Khandas and Mahatmyas, professing to be derived from it.

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External links[edit]

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