Brahma
பிரம்மா ब्रह्मा
Also Chaturmukha, Prajapati, Svayambhu, Vidhata.
Smarta
Who this is
Brahma makes the world and is almost never worshipped, which is the one fact everybody knows about him and the tradition has several explanations for. He has essentially one temple of consequence in India, at Pushkar. The puranas give reasons: that he lied about reaching the top of the pillar of fire and was cursed by Siva to have no worship; that his work is finished once the world exists, so there is nothing to ask him for. He appears constantly in the stories as the giver of the boon that causes the trouble, which is a structural role rather than a devotional one.
How to recognise them
Four faced, looking in the four directions, four armed, bearded and white haired, seated on a lotus or on a swan, holding the Vedas, a water pot, a rosary and a ladle. He carries no weapon. The fifth head was struck off by Bhairava and is not shown.
Family and companions
Born from the lotus at Vishnu’s navel. Consort Saraswati. Father of the Prajapatis and, through them, of everything. Hamsa, the swan, is his vehicle.
How they are worshipped
Kartik Purnima at Pushkar; otherwise no day of his own.
Almost none in the household. Pushkar keeps the one great temple, with the Kartik Purnima fair and the bathing in the lake. He is invoked in the sankalpam at the start of a rite and in the creation verses, and the Prajapati share is given in some homams. The tradition worships what he made and not him, and says so.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
The lie about the pillar
When the pillar of fire appeared and he and Vishnu went to find its ends, he returned claiming to have reached the top and produced a falling ketaki flower as his witness. Siva came out of the pillar, exposed the lie, and cursed him to be worshipped nowhere, and the flower never to be used in worship again. The story is the tradition’s own account of why the creator has no temples, and it is notable that the explanation given is a moral failing rather than an accident.
The fifth head
He had five heads, and with the fifth he spoke either a lie or an insult, depending on the telling, or looked with desire on his own daughter. Siva’s anger took the form of Bhairava, who took off the head, and the skull stuck to Bhairava’s hand and could not be shaken off until he reached Kashi. Every Bhairava shrine and the Kala Bhairava Ashtami in the month of Margashirsha come out of that single act, so the creator’s worst moment is the origin of another god’s whole cult.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- North India
- Pushkar is the one temple, with the Kartik Purnima fair and the ritual bath in the lake, and the camel fair alongside it.
- Tamil Nadu
- A Brahma niche is kept in the north face of most large Siva temples and is circled, but he has no shrine of his own and no festival.
- Kerala
- The sankalpam names him at the start of every rite and nothing else is offered to him.
Their days
Every one of these has a page of its own
Where to see them
From the temple directory
- Brahma Temple, Pushkar Pushkar, Ajmer, Rajasthan