The Creator, first of the Trimurti
Brahma is depicted as a red- or gold-skinned elder with four faces turned to the four quarters, his four hands holding the Vedas, a rosary, a water pot and a sacrificial ladle. He rides a white swan, the hamsa. His four faces are said to have spoken the four Vedas; one day of his life, a kalpa, spans 4.32 billion human years, the universe unfolding when he wakes and dissolving when he sleeps. His consort is Saraswati, goddess of speech and learning.
In the Puranic account he is born inside a lotus that grows from the navel of Vishnu as the latter sleeps on the cosmic ocean, and from that seat he fashions the heavens, the earth and living beings. He inherits the role of the older Vedic creator Prajapati. One tale holds that he once had five heads until Shiva, in the form of Bhairava, cut one off to punish his arrogance.
Despite his rank in the Trimurti, Brahma receives almost no active worship in India, a fact the Puranas explain with curse legends. The temple beside the lake at Pushkar in Rajasthan is the best known of the very few shrines dedicated to him, busiest during the full-moon camel fair each autumn.
