Brahma: the Creator

by Devdutt Pattanaik

For Hindus, Brahma is the God who creates the world and the world he creates is known as Brahmanda. This Brahmanda makes our very existence possible and yet, one rarely comes across a temple that's dedicated to Brahma.

For Hindus, there are also certain things, certain occurrences, and phenomena that are considered more sacred than others. But who decides what is sacred? Is it the creator? Or are these rules a result of the creator's creation?

Read on as Devdutt Pattanaik, the master of mythology, explores Brahma's role in Hindu mythology in the Creator.

Genres: Hinduism

46 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 10, 2018

About the author

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik (born December 11, 1970) is an Indian physician turned leadership consultant, mythologist and author whose works focus largely on the areas of myth, mythology, and also management. He has written a number of books related to Hindu mythology, including Myth = Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology, a novel, The Pregnant King, and Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata (2010).
He is the Chief Belief Officer of Future Group, one of India’s largest retailers, bringing the wisdom of Indian mythology into Indian business, especifically in human resource management. He also writes a column for the newspaper MID DAY.
He has also written a novel based on a tale from the Mahabharata titled 'The Pregnant King' published by Penguin Books India

Reviews

[Ritika · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's like a handbook, an introduction to the Hindu beliefs and customs. Though it gives some really believable, acceptable and explanatory insights into the myths and the mythology of the religion but clearly 46 pages don't seem sufficient enough to cover them all.

[Shubham Shekhar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the Title of the book is "BRAHMA", the manifestation of God in the form of CREATOR, this book also brilliantly describes other themes of Hindu Mythology, the lores associated with Samudra Manthan, Descent of Ganga, the Navagrahas and 27 Nakshatras, Vedic Rituals, Gods, Temple Architecture and so on.

The author has discussed the purpose of rituals inside the temple which is the replenishment of the aura of the deity and that the temple architecture embrace both the sacred and profane, both positive and negative aspects of life like we see figures of deities and depiction of moral stories from Puranas and other scriptures on the walls of a Hindu temple but the same walls also adorn the maithuna couples engaged in coitus adjacent to the sacred imageries. So, in a way, Hindu temples are depiction of magnificent world view of Hindus that embrace the entire cosmos and considers everything in this Cosmos as the manifestation of the Divine. ( *ईशा वास्यमिदं सर्वं यत्किञ्च जगत्यां जगत्‌।* -- ```verse 1``` _ईशावस्योपनिषद_ )

The author has beautifully equated temple with the body and its presiding deity with the soul.

And what allured me the most in this book is the description of Sat (Absolute Truth) and Asat (relative truth, myth, delusion).
Author has described that 'Sat' is the absolute truth and it is boundless, infinite and perfect and hence no words and no symbols can exactly express it in totality or in other words, Sat can not be reduced to a symbol or confined to words.
But Mithya or Myth (relative truth or delusion) like symbols and words can just indicate towards the Absolute Truth and hence symbols and words which could at least partially capture the abstract absolute truth are helpful and important for they are the window to the infinite and boundless Truth.
Hence, the author says that the mythology is important for it is based on myth, which in turn, encapsulates within it the element of truth.
Author also makes a very prudent observation that we accord a very high value to 'rational' but in fact, life is primarily governed by 'irrational' for e.g. love, hatred, sorrow, anger, greed, ambition, rage, even ethics, morals, aesthetics all are irrational, because they are ultimately subjective in nature and what is sacred or profane, good or bad and so on are irrational as they depend on the society and culture in which we live and hence they differ from society-to-society.

After reading this book I gained a new perspective towards the hermeneutics of Hindu mythological texts like Puranas.

*In this age of science and technology, where rationality is the hallmark of sanity, knowledge, intellect and wisdom, we often develop this tendency of having disdain towards our own culture and mythology we discard Puranas as mere fictional fables, but as Devdutt Patnaik, the author, in this book has correctly mentioned* " _For Rishis the delusion of Mithya (Mythology) served as an essential window to the truth of Sat (सत्)"_
So, I would highly recommend esp. youngsters to read all books pertaining to Hindu Mythology authored by Devdutt Patnaik ji, so that their notion of Hindu culture, traditions and mythology may change and they also develop some faith and reverence towards it.
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✍️ _Shubham Shekhar_

[gaurav singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Keep on the good work

The book Gives Good insight, language is easy, invokes thought. But over all so short, needed more depth. Keep on the good work.

[Arunkumar Chettiraj · Rating 2 out of 5]

One should learn form this author on how to glorify your own religion just like piercing a needle inside a ripe banana...