According to Hindu philosophy, Brahma is regarded as one of the manifestations of
the all-pervading reality the Bramman. According to Eastern philosophy
specifically Hindu philosophy his responsibility was to create the
material world as we know it. There are a lot of verses glorifying Brahma the
Creator God in the scriptures but there are also a few narratives that show some
of his imperfections. Even today not many Hindus engage in an active worship of
Brahma the Creator. Nobody goes around building temples for Brahma. Based on my
memory there are just two or three temples dedicated to Brahma in India and
these are very ancient temples the Brahmapreeswarar temple in the south
and pushkar in the north. Why is Brahma not actively worshipped
and more importantly why are there narratives in the Puranas showing some
of Brahma's imperfection. What is the symbolism behind this and what can we
learn from this? Before I get into this... this is not a criticism of Brahma the
God regarded as the Creator God. More importantly, and this might surprise many,
is that most of these narrations that show Brahma in a bad light are narrated
by Brahma himself in the Puranas... this is just to understand the symbolism
of the stories related to Brahma so we are aware of what the philosophy is. I
always view these symbolisms within the light of the ancient knowledge that we
discuss. So according to the Puranas the 14 worlds comprising our universe
including the one that we are in are created by Brahma the creative power. His
descendants are those who populated all these worlds the shiva purana says "Devas
, sages, demons, trees, birds, and mountain creepers born of the daughters
of daksa fill the entire space between Patala and Satya Loka. Most Puranas
define Brahma being created from the energy of Vishnu who in turn is a
manifestation of the all-pervading reality the soul or the impersonal
Brahman. I will continue to address by the names
given to these energies and not keep calling them out as the manifestations
of the Oversoul or the impersonal brahman. For the sake of clarity, I won't
keep repeating this when I call out the names. In one narrative, Brahma
once he wakes up to his sentience, sees the form of Vishnu in all his splendor
When he is welcomed by Vishnu who addresses him by calling him a "dear child" Brahma
responds in arrogance. He lashes out saying that he is the creator of this
world and why was he (Brahma) being addressed as a child. This arrogance that he shows
immediately after coming into sentience and to a being that has created him is
interesting. Again, the narration of this incident is done by Brahma himself in
the Puranas. In this continuing narrative in the shiva purana, Shiva manifests
himself as an infinite column of light to show the infinite nature of the
all-pervading reality and challenges the divinities to see if they could reach to
the head or to the foot of the column. He challenges them to measure the extent of
infinity. Brahma tries to travel to the head of the column but he's not able to
reach it. Brahma lies saying that he traveled
and he could see the head of the column he is chastised heavily for that but
finally forgiven. This is important... he is finally forgiven
So not only is Brahma an egoist, he also lies. Let's go to the next incident. All
of Brahmas creations his so-called 10 sons are called mind created that is
created by the mind of Brahma. They are not biological creations. Keeping that in
mind in yet another incident Brahma creates a beautiful woman and promptly
falls in love with her. He is censured for that by Shiva... he
ogles at Sati, Rudra's consort and is again chastised for that. There is a deep
symbolism to this story. So Brahma has a lot of ego he lies and he lusts after
objects he created. What is the symbolism of all these imperfections? Brahma's
imperfection is that he is a Creator who constantly falls in love with his own
creations. As we sit here and judge Brahma, let us ponder upon a verse from
another faith he that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone.
All these imperfections that were exhibited by Brahma are those that we
his creations have in abundance. We have all these positive and negative
attributes of Brahma within each of us. We are creators yes but we fall in love
with our own creations. Take a look. Most of the objects that we
see around us we have created but we fall in love with our own creations. We
cannot bear to be separated from these objects
we are so attached to the material world and that is our imperfection. We are also
arrogant, we try to shape the world around us in a way that we wanted to be
not caring about any other. Before any of us judges Brahma let us judge ourselves
Like Brahma we should also be aware of our weaknesses Brahma narrates incidents
that shows weaknesses and acknowledges what was done to fix it. Now, to the
question, why don't we worship Brahma? Before addressing this let me make a
couple of points. Vedanta and the other philosophies that we discuss talk about
the universal truth of God energy within each human. "Tat tvam asi" - you are
the ultimate reality so you can worship anything and nothing. Philosophies like
advaitha call what we see as the created universe as Maya an illusion. The
philosophy exhorts us to transcend what we see as the created universe and not
get bogged down by it. Now to the answer. The answer to the question is another
question. What makes us think we do not worship Brahma? All over we worship
material creations. In some philosophies even the concept of heaven is a place
where all your material needs are fulfilled by the creator and isn't the
object of our prayers almost always material or pertaining to the body? Who
among us even prays for liberation. If the intent of your worship is material
or even if it is to attain a material heaven then you're a worshiper of Brahma
If you worship material creation instead of trying to transcend creation you are
worshiping Brahma. As always, the known is a drop and the unknown is an ocean thank
you peace