BRAHMA. The Indian deity from whom Brahmanism takes its name. Brahma is the Creator, but not in the sense of being the original •source of everything. He •is the personal (muse.) manifestation of the one impersonal Essence or Being, Brahma (neuter). With him are associated, and often identified, Vishnu (q.v.) and Siva (q.v.). The two latter can, in fact, be wor shipped as P.rahma, since the functions of the three gods are interchangeable. This Is thought to account for the fact that there are not many temples to Brahma him self. There is a temple to him near Idar or Edar, and another at Pushkara, and a legend associates him with the temple at Balighat near Calcutta, one of the shrines of Siva's wife, Kali (Alexander Duff, India and Indian Missions, 1839, quoted by Oman). Brahma is said to have performed a sacrifice at Pushkara which made the lake there sacred, so that to bathe in it is to be cleansed of all sin and to be made fit to enter Brahma's heaven. Monier-Williams describes a visit to the temple at Pushkara. He found the actual shrine of Brahma in the centre of a quadrangle. " In front of the entrance was the inevitable bell. I was allowed
to look through the well-carved wooden gates at the image which was clearly visible in its sanctuary at the end of the vista of open columns. I observed that it had four black faces, each one of which was supposed to be directed towards one of the four quarters of the com pass. In point of fact, however, three of the faces were made to look at the observer, each face having two great staring glass eyes. Covering the four-faced head was a broad red turban, and over that were hanging five umbrella-shaped ornaments. I noticed that the image was dressed in red clothes with flaps of coloured cloth hanging round the waist. On one side of the god's image was that of his wife worshipped here as Gayatri or Savitri, and behind both was the image of Kama dhenu—the sacred cow granting all desires. On the marble floor in front of the shrine was the carved repre sentation of a tortoise—significant, no doubt, of Brahma's connection with Vishnu (p. 108), out of whose navel he is fabled to have sprung, seated on a lotus." See Monier-Williams; E. W. Hopkins; J. C. Oman, B.T.M.I.