ent
knowledge of the entire course of ritual procedure, including the
correct form and mystic import of the sacred texts to be repeated or
chanted by the several priests. The Brahman priest (_brahma_) being thus
the recognized head of the sacerdotal order (_brahma_), which itself is
the visible embodiment of sacred writ and the devotional spirit
pervading it (_brahma_), the complete realization of theocratic
aspirations required but a single step, which was indeed taken in the
theosophic speculations of the later Vedic poets and the authors of the
Brahmanas (q.v.), viz. the recognition of this abstract notion of the
Brahma as the highest cosmic principle and its identification with the
pantheistic conception of an all-pervading, self-existent spiritual
substance, the primary source of the universe; and subsequently coupled
therewith the personification of its creative energy in the form of
Brahma, the divine representative of the earthly priest, who was made to
take the place of the earlier conception of _Prajapati_, "the lord of
creatures" (see BRAHMANISM). By this means the very name of this god
expressed the essential oneness of his nature with that of the divine
spirit as whose manifestation he was to be considered. In the later
Vedic writings, especially the Brahmanas, however, Prajapati still
maintains throughout his position as the paramount personal deity; and
Brahma, in his divine capacity, is rather identified with Brihaspati,
the priest of the gods. Moreover, the exact relationship between
Prajapati and the Brahma (n.) is hardly as yet defined with sufficient
precision; it is rather one of simple identification: in the beginning
the Brahma was the All, and Prajapati is the Brahma. It is only in the
institutes of Manu, where we find the system of castes propounded in its
complete development, that Brahma has his definite place assigned to him
in the cosmogony. According to this work, the universe, before
undiscerned, was made discernible in the beginning by the sole,
self-existent lord Brahma (n.). He, desirous of producing different
beings from his own self, created the waters by his own thought, and
placed in them a seed which developed into a golden egg; therein was
born Brahma (m.), the parent of all the worlds; and thus "that which is
the undiscrete Cause, eternal, which is and is not, from it issued that
male who is called in the world Brahma." Having dwelt in that egg for a
year, that lord spontaneously