by his own thought split that egg in two;
and from the two halves he fashioned the heaven and the earth, and in
the middle, the sky, and the eight regions (the points of the compass),
and the perpetual place of the waters. This theory of Brahma being born
from a golden egg is, however, a mere adaptation of the Vedic conception
of _Hiranya-garbha_ ("golden embryo"), who is represented as the supreme
god in a hymn of the tenth (and last) book of the _Rigveda_. Another
still later myth, which occurs in the epic poems, makes Brahma be born
from a lotus which grew out of the navel of the god Vishnu whilst
floating on the primordial waters. In artistic representations, Brahma
usually appears as a bearded man of red colour with four heads crowned
with a pointed, tiara-like head-dress, and four hands holding his
sceptre, or a sacrificial spoon, a bundle of leaves representing the
Veda, a bottle of water of the Ganges, and a string of beads or his bow
Parivita. His vehicle (_vahana_) is a goose or swan (_hamsa_), whence he
is also called _Hamsavhana_; and his consort is Sarasvati, the goddess
of learning.

One could hardly expect that a colourless deity of this description, so
completely the product of priestly speculation, could ever have found a
place in the hearts of the people generally, And indeed, whilst in
theoretic theology Brahma has retained his traditional place and
function down to our own days, his practical cult has at all times
remained extremely limited, the only temple dedicated to the worship of
this god being found at Pushkar (Pokhar) near Ajmir in Rajputana. On the
other hand, his divine substratum, the impersonal Brahma, the
world-spirit, the one and only reality, remains to this day the ultimate
element of the religious belief of intelligent India of whatever sect.
Being devoid of all attributes, it can be the object only of meditation,
not of practical devotional rites; and philosophy can only attempt to
characterize it in general and vague terms, as in the favourite formula
which makes it to be _sachchidananda_, i.e. being (_sat_), thinking
(_chit_), and bliss (_ananda_). (J. E.)

BRAHMANA, the Sanskrit term applied to a body of prose writings appended
to the collections (_samhita_) of Vedic texts, the meaning and ritual
application of which they are intended to elucidate, and like them
regarded as divinely revealed. From a linguistic point of view, these
treatises with their appendages, the mo