The Basic Proposition---

I would like to dedicate a series of short essays to the proposition that certain Hindu myths that supposedly describe the actions of the gods are, in fact, cryptic records of the acts of their priesthoods and the spiritual teachers or gurus associated with their cults. I shall begin with the myths of Brahma. If my insights are valid, they will provide a new doorway to our understanding of this often-neglected god. Like the God of Abraham, worshiped by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Brahma is the creator of the universe---but almost no one in India worships him. This seems very strange to me as I gaze at the natural world in awe, overcome by its immensity and beauty.

The first myth I shall examine is the story of Savitri, one of Brahma’s wives. We shall see what it meant to be a “wife” of Brahma, and why Savitri cursed her “husband”.

One of the few temples of Brahma is this rock formation in the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Nature honors the creator god even if human beings have neglected to do so.

Savitri's Important Preoccupations---

In Hinduism each of the important gods has a priesthood and often a lineage of teachers or gurus. Together the priesthood and the deity form a cult that is in itself a kind of religion. Over the centuries there were critical moments in the development of these diminutive religions, and each of the crises engendered a story that records those events but also hides their nature from the uninitiated. One of the first things we discover in the myth of Savitri is that Brahma had three wives, Sarasvati, Savitri, and Gayatri. The story focuses on the addition of the third wife, Gayatri, and Savitri’s jealous reaction to her. In the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, kings and princes usually had two wives. The reason for this is easy to understand, for one of the first duties of aristocracy was to perpetuate the family or dynasty. A second wife would help to insure that the prince or king had a son. In the myths of Brahma the polygamous practice of the Indian nobility was simply duplicated in the life of the god. But the “wives” of Brahma were actually his chief priestesses. The priestess who had the greatest stature and the most authority corresponded to the first wife. The priestess who was subordinate to her and was her helper was depicted as the second wife. Ideally the marital relationship of these priestesses to their deity was indicative of their unique dedication and devotion to him. In the myth of Savitri the goddess Savitri refuses to appear at a special yagna (sacrifice) because, as she explains, she has a myriad of things to do, and in addition needs more time to beautify herself for the event. Because it was only proper that a wife accompany Brahma as he performed the rites, the god quickly acquired a new wife by marrying the humble cowherd’s daughter, Gayatri.

Savitri's Curse and the Two Priesthoods--- 

When Savitri learned that her husband Brahma had married a lowly cowherd’s daughter, Gayatri, she cursed Brahma and several of the other gods who had attended his special yagna or sacrifice. In my interpretation of the story Brahma's “marriage” to Gayatri was actually the appointment of a lower-caste woman as priestess in place of Savitri, who was not dismissed from the service but demoted in rank. The charge leveled against her was her preoccupation with worldly affairs and a vainglorious attention to her own person---her beauty, her clothes, and her jewels. What Savitri's curse actually was, is still a matter of debate. Undoubtedly some people have psychic powers (siddhis) that can be used to harm others. In addition Savitri probably used her worldly charms and influence to take revenge upon the high priest who represented Brahma. Savitri cursed Brahma to be worshiped only at Pushkar, the site of the yagna, and nowhere else. But we must imagine that this drastic limitation to the cult of the god was accomplished in a thoroughly practical manner. 

In an article published in the “Times of India” on August 30, 2005, we read that in 1984 a certain Mahant Laharpuri, the guardian of the Brahma temple at Pushkar, sued Benugopal Sharma, the head priest of a Savitri temple, for the right to perform five pujas a year at the Savitri temple and receive the money paid for these rituals. This report provides me with an interesting hint that in her vengeful mood Savitri left the service of the Brahma cult and founded a second priesthood. In other words, Savitri established her own temple and priesthood, of which she was the head. As high priestess she was, in a manner of speaking, its “goddess”. She probably did everything she could to restrict the influence of the Brahma cult---and for all we know, her actions may have been decisive, for few people worship Brahma today. But at the same time Brahma’s wives are usually listed as two in number---Sarasvati and Gayatri---and Savitri is not mentioned.

A Moment of Reflection: Who, Actually, is Brahma?

A common opinion among scholars is that the creator god Brahma was himself created in the minds of the Vedic sages who tried to find a single personal deity in the impersonal cosmic soul which they called Brahman. If this is historically true, then it is one reason why so few people in India worship Brahma today. A philosophical idea will tend to appeal to other philosophers but not to the uneducated, who inevitably prefer to worship the gods that arise from their own soil or their experience of nature and life. Only a few students, practicing brahmacharya or chastity, could gain access to the ashrams where sages or gurus taught them the Sanskrit sacred texts. So it should not surprise us that in the middle ages the popular Hinduism of the Puranas eclipsed and superseded the Vedic religion. Eventually Hindus worshiped Vishnu, Shiva, Ganesha, Devi, and Surya, but not Brahma.

I have my own purpose in writing these essays, however. I think that in Brahma the Vedic sages gave us a concept that is superior to many other traditional ideas about God. And ideas are important. They are not as important, obviously, as what God actually is, but they can help us to approach Him---or if they are bad ideas, they will prevent us from finding Him. 

As Saguna Brahman (Brahman with attributes) or Ishwara (the Lord) Brahma is the personal deity who awoke from the impersonal, ineffable Reality and created the universe, which Vishnu (who is usually identified with Ishwara) did not do. There is no need for another god save the goddess Sarasvati who personifies his feminine nature. She should ideally be called Brahmi or Brahmani except for a quirk of fate whereby Brahmi became the name of one of the Ashta Matrikas, who are forms of Parvati. It is notable, however, that both Brahma and Brahmi ride upon a swan, and both Sarasvati and Brahmi are goddesses of Vac or speech. The image of a swan, by the way, is an allusion to the mantra "Hamsa", which literally means “swan” but also means aham-sa or “I am That”. “That” is the nameless Reality which ironically does has a name, Brahman.

What Brahma brings to us that the Father in Heaven of the Christians and the Allah of the Muslims do not, is a god who created a compassionate universe in which sin is punished, not by hell, but by extra lifetimes that allow the soul to evolve. And despite the dissolution of the universe at the end of a "day" of Brahma, he himself never tried to destroy the world or mankind.  

A statue of Brahma with a noble face that evokes the memory of a philosopher king like Marcus Aurelius, but even more saintly. 

The Four Heads of Brahma, and the Missing Fifth Head---

One of the best known of the myths of Brahma tells us how his five heads were created, and how the five eventually became four. Because Brahma was alone at the beginning of creation, every person whom he created was, in a certain sense, his son or daughter. One of the first beings whom he created was his consort Sarasvati---and here we come to a critical point. When Brahma wished to have sex with Sarasvati his desire could be regarded as incestuous. The god looked at the recently born goddess with sexual desire, and she (in her modesty) moved a quarter of a circle to the right. Brahma looked at her again, and she moved another quarter of a circle. She repeated her movement four times, completing a circle, and then moved to a place above the god. At each of the four places where she paused a head was added to his original head, until the god had four heads gazing in the four cardinal directions, and a fifth head in the center of the four that looked upward.

What are we to make of this myth? First I would like to observe that on the spiritual level appropriate to a world creator we may find gender differentiation, but not sexual desire. Sexual desire, and energies that are obviously sexual, are limited to the physical and astral planes. So we cannot say that Brahma himself had sexual desire. I believe that the myth records the introduction of tantric sexuality into the practices of Brahma’s priesthood. The high priest, impersonating the god, sat in the center of a circle; while the high priestess, impersonating the goddess, walked around him in a clockwise direction, pausing at the points of the compass. Finally she sat in his lap and they both gazed upward while having intercourse without ejaculation.

The myth continues---when Shiva learned of Brahma’s sexual act he became indignant and enraged, and cut off Brahma’s fifth head, leaving only four. As I interpret this action, “Shiva” was a leading figure in the religious world of that day, a kind of Pope. Even today the leaders of the four maths (monasteries) established in the north, south, east and west of India by Shankaracharya follow the religion of their founder, which blends Vedanta with Saivaism. Through the centuries these saintly men have been, in a sense, the “guardians” of Hinduism. The removal of the fifth head, which gazed upward, represents the removal of the Brahma cult from the list of acceptable religions capable of offering their adherents a transcendent experience. And, as a matter of fact, the sexual practices of Brahma’s priesthood only served to prevent the participants from attaining samadhi, a transcendental meditative state.

In the Hinduism of today it is none other than Mahavatar Babaji who plays the role of principle guardian of the Sanatana Dharma. He is capable of doing what the Shiva of old did; and, indeed, he may be the same person.

The Circular Movement of Sarasvati---

In my last essay I discussed a myth in which Sarasvati made a circular movement around Brahma in order to escape his gaze as he looked upon her with incestuous desire. It seems to me that this movement was part of a ritual that was already ancient when it was corrupted by the introduction of tantric sexuality in the priesthood of Brahma. The figure of the god in the center of a circle traversed by a goddess can be nothing less than the identification of Brahma with the sun, and Sarasvati with the earth. We must remember that cosmologies in ancient times did not usually contain more than our solar system, surrounded by a sphere in which the stars shone. The ritual which we are describing reveals that the priesthood of Brahma knew about the heliocentric nature of the solar system. As was typical of that time the sun was considered masculine and the earth feminine. The concept of Brahma as the creative power of the sun differs from ideas involving Surya (literally, the sun) because it gives a greater emphasis to the interior reality of the solar spirit---the transcendent reality of the sun. Ironically, it was just this transcendent quality which was lost when real meditation was replaced with an erotic ritual.

A recovery of the religion of Brahma might involve a reintroduction of this distinctive solar rite without the sex, replacing some of the devotional pujas that are, in a way, generic, for they are found in many Hindu cults.

Portrayal of the five heads of Brahma in an artistically pleasing manner must be difficult, and such depictions are rare. In this statue the firth head is represented by a domed shape, which is in itself a fitting symbol of transcendence.