The word Sanantan Dharma used by politicians tries to proclaim that Hinduism is unchanging and the only disruption came because of Muslims and British, and their political opponents. But that is not true. Take the case of the Hindu Trinity. Today, we speak about Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer. But this concept of the four-headed creator known as Brahma who performs Vedic ritual emerges much later in Hindu history, about 2,000 years ago. This Brahma is not found in the Vedic corpus at all.
In the Vedic corpus, which is over 3,000 years old, the word Brahman refers to the power of the cosmos that can be invoked through the chants and the mantras. It is the hidden meaning and the power to change things through sound. This Brahman later in the Upanishads comes to mean the cosmic spirit in the universe and has nothing to do with the four-headed Brahma.
The idea of the creator god first emerges in the Rig Veda in the form of the Purusha who is said to be a primal organism with multiple heads, multiple arms, who is dismembered and sacrificed into various parts from whom different parts of nature come into being like the sun and the moon and the wind and the waters and finally the plants and the animals.
Later we are told in Vedic ritual texts, known as the Brahmanas, that the Purusha was the first being to be born who experienced loneliness and therefore created companionship, who experienced hunger and therefore created food, who experienced curiosity and therefore created knowledge; and his companionship, and his food and his knowledge took the form of the goddess.
The same ritual manuals refer to the lord of progeny or the Prajapati and in various myths found in ritual text he is described as the fish who saves Manu from the flood, the turtle on which the earth resides, the wild boar who jumped into the sea and rescued the submerged earth. Prajapati is equated with the breath that gives life to living organisms, speech through which ideas can be communicated to other human beings and to the gods. Prajapati is linked to the imagination, to thought, he is linked to death, he is linked to time, he is linked to the ritual of the yajna, he is linked to the sun and the moon. So Prajapati is a very important character in the Vedic ritual manuals. These stories of Prajapati are the original itihasa, stories that were told to explain the Vedic rituals.
In one such story the Prajapati is the father of the devas and the asuras and he constantly finds his children quarrelling over food and it is in the Satapatha Brahmana that we find the first division for the first time between devas and asuras. Asuras feed themselves, while the devas feed each other and this act transforms devas into higher beings and asuras into lower beings.
In yet another story the asura king Virochana looks into a mirror and assumes that whatever is reflected is his true self while Indra the king of devas looks into the mirror and realises the body is in, enclosed in his true self and the true self is invisible. Prajapati therefore is impressed with the devas and the deva takes a superior position.
Once the devas, asuras and humans go to Prajapati and ask what is the solution to life’s problem and all he says is the sound ‘d’. The devas assume it means ‘damyata’ or restraint to their hedonistic lifestyle. The asuras think it means ‘daya’, restraint to their cruel ways and humans, manavas think dha means ‘dutta’ or generosity, so that they stop their restraint to their stingy ways. So everybody finds the answer from their common father Prajapati.
Later in the Puranic literature this Prajapati, the father of devas and asuras transforms into Brahma. What is interesting is the creator god in Hindu Vedic texts is always masculine and it appropriates all reproductive functions. Even Brahma is not clearly identified with a wife, though for the sake of symmetry he is sometimes associated with Saraswati. What you have is Brahma producing multiple sons, the rishis like Kashyap and Atreya who have wives and through these wives they produce many children. So Kashyap has children, has wives who give birth to snakes and birds and devas and asuras.
Meanwhile Vishnu emerges as the preserver of the world and takes over the proper qualities of Prajapati. So Prajapati, the fish, the turtle, the boar in the Vedic ritual texts becomes the first three avatars of Vishnu in the Vishnu Puran. This Vishnu takes certain parts of Prajapati and Prajapati transforms into Brahma and a new mythology emerges by 500 AD by which time people have forgotten the old Purusha of Vedic times.
Hinduism has a history. Gods appear and disappear. Even the creator was created. Denial of history, and manipulation of history, using propaganda tools is a futile exercise. It never works. For any religion.
