I previously told you about the Hindu god Shiva, today I want to introduce you to the Hindu God Brahma.
Brahma is considered the first god of the Hindu Trinity, the others being Vishnu and Shiva. Lord Brahma is regarded as the Supreme Being, the god of gods. Lord Brahma is the originator and the generator or mankind.
In order to create the world and the human race as well, Brahma created a Goddess out of himself. Brahma called the Goddess Gayatri, but she was also known as Saraswati. There are several more names, but too many to list.
There are many, many different myths about Lord Brahma so today I will share with you the one that I like the best.
Brahma is traditionally depicted with four heads, four faces, and four arms. The heads were created as he loved Gayatri, but he was suspicious of her and kept turning his head to watch her everywhere that she went, and who she was with. Gayatri was very embarrassed by Brahma's continually watching her so she would try to sneak away, but to only be seen once again by one of Brahma's four heads and caught once again. Another myth about the heads is that the four heads of Brahma symbolize that he holds all the knowledge to create the world.
Brahma also in shown with four hands. Again, there are different images showing different items, but the four that seemed to connect with me were – In one hand he held the “Vedas”, these will be explained for you. In another hand he held an hour-glass drum. This is a symbol of creation “beating the pulse of the universe. “In the third hand he holds a lotus flower, which symbolises purity; and in the fourth hand he holds prayer beads to assist with meditation.
The four Vedas are very important to the Hindu culture. They are an extremely large and comprehensive scripture that form the core of Hinduism. Many Hindus believe that the Vedas were not written by anyone including Ishwar (the term used for God among the Hindus), but are eternally existing. While many historians regard the Vedas some of the oldest surviving texts in the world, they estimate them to have been written down between 2500 and 500 BCE.
The Vedas are the most ancient books in the World, and they are the Foundation of Hinduism. Veda means knowledge. Any form of Knowledge acquired is considered as a Veda whereby it has no beginning or end. While it might surprise people how a book can have no beginning or end, the ancient Rishis who wrote these accepted that the complete knowledge of the Universe could never fit in any book, and so there would always be new things to discover. This philosophy makes Hinduism a very tolerant religion, always ready to accept new ideas from other cultures.
The motive of the Vedas is to help man to remain within the limitations of the Vedas despite having lost the spiritual emotion that “He is I” by retaining awareness of the soul principle or at least to prevent him from becoming unhappy in the materialistic world. The Vedas are meant primarily to bestow the entire creation with happiness rather than to attain the Final Liberation (Mokksha). Due to smooth functioning of the cycle of Dharmacharan” Righteousness (Dharma) and the Final Liberation society becomes happy. This is a cumulative merit (samashti punya). The Vedas are certainly overjoyed to see one individual liberated, but they are even happier to see ninety-nine people making spiritual progress.
The Vedas are not meant merely for spiritual contemplation. They also contain worldly and divine concepts in them. “Veda” means wisdom, knowledge or vision, and it manifests the language of the gods in human speech. The laws of the Vedas regulate the social, legal, domestic and religious customs of the Hindus to this present day.
The Rig Veda; The Book of Mantra
The Sama Veda: The Book of Song
The Yajur Veda: The Book of Ritual
The Atharva Veda: The Book of Spell
You can research the four different Veda's on your own as they encapsulate much more than this blog can hold. They are beautiful to both read about and hear about. On one of the sources I will provide I will put an (!!) by the web site where you can have a wonderful time listening about them, and to hear them chanted as I have.
So, we have one more Hindu God in the “trinity “Vishnu and he will be presented in November!
I hope you have time to do some research on the Vedas, as I will. From the video they sounded beautiful and their being described has me very curious. So, until next time, remember even the “little” things can make huge differences in someone's life. Blessed Be!
Blessings, StormloverWolf
Sources:
www.sanatansociety.ord
www.answers.com
www.templepurohit.com (Beautiful video to enjoy!)
Image - britannica.com