BRAHM, or Para Brahm, SANSIL, the Supreme Being, is a name that first appears in Hindu religious books, in some of the best upanishads, or appendages to the Vedas, of later date than the first three, and introducing a different and superior theology. It seems to have been a first towards the recognition of a Creator ; and many Hindus of the present day recognise that the almighty, the infinite, the eternal, incomprehen sible, self-existent being, he whose power is too infinite to be imagined, is 13rahml creator, pre server, and destroyer of the universe, from whom all souls come, and to him again return. While the learned Brahmans thus acknowledge one God, they have confined their doctrines to their own school of philosophy, and have tacitly assented to, even taught in public, a • religion in which the most discordant fictions have been erected, and have woven a mythology of the most extensive character. A philosophic few excepted, Hindus are worshippers of a superstitious and idolatrous polytheism, and Hindus erect no altars to Brahm (Hindoo Pantheon, p. 4). The Narayana of the present Hindus is rather the Spirit of God (Ins. of Menu, chap. 1., v. 10), though the two Hindu sects claim for Vishnu and Siva the title of Nara yana, arl—Brahma himself is sometimes called Narayana. At present there will not be found two Hindu families whose belief is identical, though almost all the educated of the people recognise one God under one name or another.
From time to time great reformers rise, ing the prevailing Hindu idolatry, and so anxious are the people to know the truth, that every new teacher immediately gathers round him a number of disciples. But it is without the basis of a recog nised revealed religion, and the zeal of the pupils soon calms down. In the meantime the bulk of the Hindu people are engaged in spirit-worship find hero-worship ; in the worship of the manes of ancestors ; in the worship of plants and animals ; of the inanimate objects 'of nature and of natural phenomena, of forms of men and women, and of shapeless blocks of stone and wood. Some forms of Hindu belief are systems of rationalism, others are systems of philosophy, and others are physio logical doctrines, with emblems to illustrate views entertained as to cosmogony and production which take the place of religion. The human form in its natural state, or possessing the heads or limbs of various animals, the elements, stones, and trees, have been deified, and become objects of religious adoration. The sun, moon, and all the heavenly host ; fire, earth, and all natural phenomena,—all nature, indeed, — the passions emotions of human beings, their vices and virtues, are transformed into persons, and act appropriate parts in the history of man. —Taylor ; Moor, Hindoo Pantheon ; Coleman; Wilson. See :Upanishad.