Brahma Sentence Examples

In 1830 he organized the society known as the Brahma Samaj.

Thus the pious Hindu, confronted by the impossibility of obtaining perfect knowledge by the senses or by reason, finds his sole perfection in the contemplation of the infinite (Brahma).

It is this intrinsic power of fervent invocation and worship which found an early expression in the term brahma; and its independent existence as an active moral principle in shaping the destinies of man became recognized in the Vedic pantheon in the conception of a god Brihaspati or Brahmanaspati, " lord of prayer or devotion," the divine priest and the guardian of the pious worshipper.

By a natural extension of the original meaning, the term brahma, in the sense of sacred utterance, was subsequently likewise applied to the whole body of sacred writ, the tri-vidya or "triple lo re" of the Veda; whilst it also came to be commonly used as the abstract designation of the priestly function and the Brahmanical order generally, in the same way as the term kshatra, " sway, rule," came to denote the aggregate of functions and individuals of the Kshatriyas or Rajanyas, the nobility or military class.

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.

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."

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.

Brahma is conceived as the eternal selfexistent being, which on its material side unfolds itself to the world by gradually condensing itself to material objects through the gradations of ether, fire, water, earth and the elements.

This state of heart is the best in the world."Often elsewhere four such states are described, the Brahma Viharas or Sublime Conditions.

The Arya Samaj is not an eclectic system like the Brahma Samaj, which strives to find the common basis underlying all the great religions, and its narrower scope and corresponding intensity of conviction have won it a greater strength.

According to Hindu legend, the creator god Brahma did not really sleep, but was in a state of yoga Nidra called the unconscious sleep.

Brahma (n.) is the designation generally applied to the Supreme Soul (paramatman), or impersonal, all-embracing divine essence, the original source and ultimate goal of all that exists; Brahma (m.), on the other hand, is only one of the three hypostases of that divinity whose creative activity he represents, as distinguished from its preservative and destructive aspects, ever apparent in life and nature, and represented by the gods Vishnu and Siva respectively.

The neuter term brahma is used in the Rigveda both in the abstract sense of "devotion, worship," and in the concrete sense of "devotional rite, prayer, hymn."

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.

It contains oneof the very few temples, in all India, dedicated to Brahma.

Zeus is not self-existent in the sense in which the Indian Brahma is.

To-day Vishnu is adored by the Vishnavite sects as the equal or even the superior of Brahma, and is styled the Preserver.

In the Trimurti, Brahma (the impersonal) is manifested as Brahma (the personal creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Siva (the destroyer).

The Legend Hardwar has earned fame for being the place blessed by the trinity of Lord Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma.

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.

According to this work, the universe, before undiscerned, was made discernible in the beginning by the sole, self-existent lord Brahma (n.).

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.

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.

Hence the nations of antiquity ascribed to it a divine origin; Brahma in Hindustan, Isis in Egypt, Demeter in Greece, and Ceres in Italy, were its founders.

The Brahma Samaj maintained a bare existence till 1841, when Babu Debendra Nath Tagore, a member of a famous and wealthy Calcutta family, devoted himself to it.

Debendra Nath Tagore sought refuge from the difficulty by becoming an ascetic. The "Brahma Samaj of India," as Chunder Sen's party styled itself, made considerable progress extensively and intensively until 1878, when a number of the most prominent adherents, led by Anand Mohan Bose, took umbrage at Chunder Sen's despotic rule and at his disregard of the society's regulations concerning child marriage.

This led to the formation of the Sadharana (Universal) Brahma Samaj, now the most popular and progressive of the three sections of the movement and conspicuous for its work in the cause of literary culture, social reform and female education in India.

A small community (about 130) in Bombay, known as the Prarthna (Prayer) Samaj, was founded in 1867 through Keshub Chunder's influence; they have a similar creed to that of the Brahma Samaj, but have broken less decisively with orthodox and ceremonial Hinduism.

He is a Brahman who knoweth Brahma (God).

As Brahma is the creator and Vishnu the preserver, so Siva is the destroyer.

One of these portions is dedicated to Brahma, another to Vishnu and the third to Siva.

Fifty towers, decorated with quadruple faces of Brahma, are built at intervals upon the galleries, the whole temple ranking as perhaps the most remarkable of the Khmer remains.

The temple was originally devoted to the worship of Brahma, but afterwards to that of Buddha; its construction is assigned by Aymonier to the first half of the 12th century A.D.

That the theory of the triple manifestation of the deity was indeed only a compromise between Brahmanical aspirations and popular worship, probably largely influenced by the traditional sanctity of the number three, is sufficiently clear from the fact that, whilst Brahma, the creator, and at the same time the very embodiment of Brahmanical class pride, has practically remained a mere figurehead in the actual worship of the people, Siva, on the other hand, so far from being merely the destroyer, is also the unmistakable representative of generative and reproductive power in nature.

In fact, Brahma, having performed his legitimate part in the mundane evolution by his original creation of the universe, has retired into the background, being, as it were, looked upon as functus officio, like a venerable figure of a former generation, whence in epic poetry he is commonly styled pitamaha, " the grandsire."

As might happen to any earth-lord, Indra is actually defeated in battle by the son of the demon-king of Lanka (Ceylon), and kept there a prisoner till ransomed by Brahma and the gods conferring immortality on his conqueror.

Though himself, like most Brahmans, apparently by predilection a follower of Siva, his aim was the revival of the doctrine of the Brahma as the one self-existent Being and the sole cause of the universe; coupled with the recognition of the practical worship of the orthodox pantheon, especially the gods of the Trimurti, as manifestations of the supreme deity.

This is the highest order of asceticism, members of which are supposed to be solely engaged in meditating on the Brahma, and to be" equally indifferent to pleasure or pain, insensible of heat or cold, and incapable of satiety or want."Some of them go about naked, but the majority are clad like the Dandis.

On the speculative side, Ramanuja also met Sankara's strictly monistic theory by another recognizing Vishnu as identical with Brahma as the Supreme Spirit animating the material world as well as the individual souls which have become estranged from God through unbelief, and can only attain again conscious union with him through devotion or love (bhakti).

Assam is a fertile series of valleys, with the great channel of the Brahmaputra (literally, the Son of Brahma) flowing down its middle, and an infinite number of tributaries and watercourses pouring into it from the mountains on either side.

According to the legend there was once born upon earth a girl named Vishnumaya or Lopamudra, the daughter of Brahma; but her divine father permitted her to be regarded as the child of a mortal, called Kavera-muni.

He lost much of his supremacy when the triad Brahma, Siva and Vishnu became predominant.

All that night he is said to have remained in deep meditation under the Bo tree; and the orthodox Buddhists believe that for seven times seven nights and days he continued fasting near the spot, when the archangel Brahma, came and ministered to him.

But even when we add all sections of the Brahma Samaj together, the total number of adherents is only about 4000, mostly found in Calcutta and its neighbourhood.

It is " the selfexistent Lord," who, " with a thought, created the waters, and deposited in them a seed which became a golden egg, in which egg he himself is born as Brahma -, the progenitor of the worlds."4 The doctrine of creation by a thought is characteristically Indian.