z:\ ambedkar\vol 04\vol4 05.indd MK SJ DK YS 23 9 2013/YS 8 11 2013 169
APPENDIX III
169
Puranas are full of such conflicts, even wars among Gods. There were conflicts between Rudra and Narayana [1], between Krishna and Shiva [2] . In these conflicts the Brahmins have made Brahma the Arbitrator.
The same Brahmins who elevated Brahma to such pre-eminence turned against him, started degrading him and mud-slinging him. They started propagating the view that Brahma was really inferior to Vishnu and Shiva. Contrary to their previous utterances the Brahmins said that Brahma was born from Shiva [3] and some said that he was born from Vishnu [4] .
The Brahmins completely inverted the relation between Shiva and Brahma. Brahma was no longer the God who could give salvation. The God who could give salvation was Shiva and they reduced Brahma to the position of a common devotee worshipping Shiva and Linga in the hope of getting salvation [5] . They reduced him to the position of servant of Shiva by making him the charioteer of Shiva [6] .
The Brahmins did not stop with degrading Brahma. They villified him in the worst manner possible. They broadcast the story of his having committed rape on his own daughter Sarasvati which is repeated in the Bhagwat Purana [7] :
“We have heard, O Kshatriya, that Svayambhu (Brahma) had a passion for Vach, his slender and enchanting daughter, who had no passion for him. The Munis, his sons, headed by Marichi, seeing their father bent upon wickedness, admonished him with affection: ‘This is such a thing as has never been done by those before you, nor will those after you do it,—that you, being the lord, should sexually approach your daughter, not restraining your passion. This, O preceptor of the world, is not a laudable deed even in glorious personages, through imitation of whose actions men attain felicity. Glory to that divine being (Vishnu) who by his own lustre revealed this (universe) which abides in himself,—he must maintain righteousness’. Seeing his sons, the Prajapatis, thus speaking before him, the lord of the Prajapatis (Brahma) was ashamed, and abandoned his body. This dreadful body the regions received, and it is known as foggy darkness.”
The result of this degrading and defamatory attacks on Brahma was to damn him completely. No wonder that his cult disappeared from the face of India leaving him a nominal and theoretical member of the Trimurti.
1 Mahabharat Shanti Parva Quoted in Muir Vol. IV. p. 240.
2 Mahabharat Shanti Parva Ibid. p . 279.
3 Mahabharat Anushasan Parva—Muir Ibid. p. 188.
4 Bhagwat Purana— Ibid. p . 43.
5 Mahabharat quoted in Muir’s Sanskrit Texts Vol. IV p. 192.
6 Ibid, p . 193.
7 Muir’s Sanskrit Texts Vol. IV p. 47.