Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Brahma And The Problem Of Popularity, Grant Cayton

Student Symposium

Brahma, the creator god, theoretically occupies a major position in Hinduism but, in practice, receives virtually no bhakti-style devotional worship. The study examines potential causes of Brahma’s lack of popular worship through analysis of existing scholarship, and through in-depth interviews with eight Hindus. These subjects were asked to give their own explanations and evaluate scholarly theories on Brahma’s unpopularity in devotional worship. Among scholarly theories, Km. Rajani Mishra's states that after creation, Brahma has nothing to offer humanity, and argues that Brahma’s character was not compelling enough to retain followers. Alternatively, Greg Bailey suggests that Brahma’s role as creator ties …