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BRAHMA-LOKA. See Loka, BRAHMAN". The first of the four castes; the sacerdotal class, the members of which may be, but are not necessarily, priests. A Brahman is the chief of all created beings ; his per- son is inviolate ; he is entitled to all honour, and enjoys many rights and privileges. The >S'atapatha Brahmawa declares that " there are two kinds of gods ; first the gods, then those who are Brahmans, and have learnt the Veda and repeat it : they are human gods." The chief duty of a Brahman is the study and teaching of the Vedas, and the performance of sacrifices and other religious ceremonies ; but in modern times many Brahmans entirely neglect these duties, and they engage in most of the occupations of secular life. Under the law of Manu, the life of a Brahman Avas divided into four a.sramas or stages : — 1. Brahmachdrl. — The student, whose duty was to pass his days in humble and obedient attendance upon his sp)iritual preceptor in the study of the A-^edas. 2. Griliastha. — The householder ; the married man living with his wife as head of a family engaged in the ordinary duties of a Brahman, reading and teaching the Yedas, sacrificing and assisting to sacrifice, bestowing alms and receiving alms. 3. Vdnap'asfha. — The anchorite, or " dweller in the woods," 6o BRAHMANA. who, liaving discharged his duties as a man of the world, has retired into the forest to devote himself to self-denial in food and raiment, to mortifications of various kinds, to religious meditation, and to the strict performance of all ceremonial duties. 4. Sannydsl. — The religious mendicant, who, freed from all forms and observances, wandors about and subsists on alms, practising or striving for that condition of mind which, heedless of the joys and j)ains, cares and troubles of the flesh, is intent only upon the deity and final absorption. The divisions and subdivisions of the Brahman caste are almost innumerable. It must suffice here to notice the great divisions of north and south, the Pancha Gauc/a and the Pancha Dravif/a. The five divisions of Gau<:/a, or Bengal, are the Brahmans of — I. Kanyakubja, Kanauj ; 2. Saraswata, the north-west, about the Saraswati or Sarsiiti river; 3. Gaur?a; 4. Mithila, ISTorth Bihar; 5. Utkala, Orissa. The Pancha Dravif/a are the Brahmans of — I. Maha-rash/ra, the Mahratta country; 2. Telinga, the Telugu country ; 3. Dravi(Za, the Tamil country ; 4. Karna/a, the Cana- rese country ; 5. Giirjjara, Guzerat. BEAHMAiVA. ' Belonging to Brahmans.' Works composed by and for Brahmans. That part of the Veda which was intended for the use and guidance of Brahmans in the use of the hymns of the Mantra, and therefore of later production ; but the Brah- mana, equally with the Mantra, is held to be /S'ruti or revealed word. Excepting its claim to revelation, it is a Hindu Talmud. The Brrdimawa collectively is made up of the different Brrdimawas, which are ritualistic and liturgical writings in prose. They con- tain the details of the Vedic ceremonies, with long explanations of their origin and meaning ; they give instructions as to the use of particular verses and metres ; and they abound with curious legends, divine and human, in illustration. In them are found " the oldest rituals we have, the oldest linguistic explanations, the oldest traditional narratives, and the oldest philoso^^hical speculations." As literary productions they are not of a high order, but some " striking thoughts, bold expressions, sound reasoning, and curious traditions are found among the mass of pedantry and grandiloquence." Each of the Sanhitiis or collec- tion of hymns has its Brahma/zas, and these generally maintain the essential character of the Veda to which they belong. Thus BRAHMANASAPTI— BRAHMA PURANA. 6i the BrahmaTzas of the Big are specially devoted to the duties of the Hotri, who recites the richas or verses, those of the Yajur to the performance of the sacrifices by the Adhwaryn, and those of the Saman to the chaunting by the Udgatri. The Big has the Aitarej^a Brahma?za, which is perhaps the oldest, and may date as far back as the seventh century b. c. This is sometimes called Aswalayana. It has another called Kaushitaki or /S'ankhayana. The Taittiriya Sanhita of the Yajur-veda has the Taittiriya Brahma?ia, and the Yajasaneyi Sanhita has the iS'atapatha Brah- mawa, one of the most important of all the Brahma^ias. The Sama-veda has eight BrahmaTias, of which the best known are the Praucflia or Pancha-vin^a, the TRndja, and the Sha/i-vinsa. The Atharva has only one, the Gopatha Bra,lima?ia. In their fullest extent the Brahma?ias embrace also the treatises called AraTzyakas and Upanishads. BKAHMANASPATI. A Vedic equivalent of the name Brl- haspati. BRAHMAiVDA PURAiVA. " That which has declared, in 12,200 verses, the magnificence of the egg of Brahma, and in which an account of the future kalpas is contained, is called the Brahma72t?a Pura^za, and was revealed by Brahma." This PuraTia, like the Skanda, is " no longer procurable in a collective body," but is represented by a variety of Khawc^as and Maha- tmj^as professing to be derived from it. The Adhyatma Rama- yaTza, a very popular work, is considered to be a part of this PuraTza. BRAHMAA"!. The female form, or the daughter of Brahma, also called A^ata-riipa (q.v.). BRAHMA-PURA. The city of Brahma. The heaven of Brahma, on the summit of ]\Iount Meru, and enclosed by the river Ganga. BRAHMA PURAiVA. In all the lists of the PuraTzas the Brahma stands first, for which reason it is sometimes entitled the Adi or " Pirst " Pura?za. It was repeated by Brahma to MarTchi, and is said to contain 10,000 stanzas, but the actual number is between 7000 and Sooo. It is also called the Saura Pura?za, because " it is, in great part, appropriated to the worship of Siirya, the sun." " The early chapters give a description of the creation, an account of the Manwantaras, and the history of the Solar and Lunar dynasties to the time of Krish?za in a 62 BRAHMA VAIVARTA PURANA. summary manner, and in words "vvliicb. are common to it and several other Pura/ias. A brief description of the universe succeeds ; and then come a number of chapters relating to the holiness of Orissa, with its temples and sacred groves, dedicated to the sun, to /S'iva, and Jagan-natha, the latter especially. These chapters are characteristic of this Purawa, and show its main object to be the promotion of the worship of Krishna as Jagan- natha. To these particulars succeeds a life of Iv7'ish7ia, which is word for word the same as that of the Yish/iu Pura?ia ; and the compilation terminates with a particular detail of the mode in which Yoga or contemplative devotion, the object of wliich is still VishTiu, is to be performed. There is little in this which corresponds with the definition of a Pancha-laksha?2a Pura??a, and the mention of the temples of Orissa, the date of the original construction of which is recorded, shows that it could not have been compiled earlier than the thirteenth or fourteenth century." This Pura?ia has " a supplementary or concluding section called the Brahmottara Pura?za, which contains about 3000 stanzas. This bears still more entirely the character of a Mahatmya or local legend, being intended to celebrate the sanctity of the Balaja river, conjectured to be the same as the Banas in Marwar. There is no clue to its date, but it is clearly modern, grafting personages and fictions of its own invention on a few hints from older authorities." — Wilson. BEAHMARSHI-DEaS'A. " Kurukshetra, the Matsyas, the Panchalas, and the Surasenas. This land, wliich comes to Brahmavartta, is the land of Brahmarshis. " — Manu. BRAHMARSHIS. it/shis of the Brahman caste, who were the founders of the gotras of Brahmans, and dwell in the sphere of Brahma. See /tishi BRAHMA-SAVARAT. The tenth Manu. See Manu. BRAH]\1A SUTRAS. Aphorisms on the Vedanta philosophy by Badaraya?ia or Yyasa. They are also called Brahma Mimansa Siitras. They are in course of translation by the Rev. K. M. Banerjea in the Blhliotheca Indica. BRAPBIA YAIYARTA PURAAA. " That Pura7?a which is related by SavarTii to Narada, and contains the account of the greatness of Krishy^a, with the occurrences of the Rathantara- kalpa, where also the story of Brahma-varaha is repeatedly told, is caUed the Brahma Yaivarta Purawa, and contains 18,000 BRAHMAVARTTA—BRIHASPA TI. 63 stanzas." The copies known ratlier exceed this number of stanzas, but the contents do not answer to this description.