Bunch Of Hindu Gods

Bunch Of Hindu Gods Part 1, or simply

Brahma

It is one of the Hindu gods, a member of Trimurti (Hindu Trinity) (the others are Vishnu and Shiva). His first functions is to be the God of Creation. He is usually confused with the Supreme Cosmic Spirit of Hindu philosophy (named Brahman), but the words are akin to each other. His wife is named Saraswati, the goddess of learning.

Brahma is traditionally depicted with four heads and four faces and four arms. With each head he continually recites one of the four Vedas (will be looked at in one of the nearest posts). He is depicted with a bird. None of his arms has weapon (like many other Hindu gods). One of his hands is shown holding a scepter in the form of a spoon, which is associated with the pouring of holy ghee or oil into a sacrificial pyre - indicating the fact that Brahma is the lord o

f sacrifices. Another of his hands holds a water-pot (sometimes depicted as a coconut shell containing water). The significance of the water is that it is the initial, all-encompassing ether in which the first element of creation evolved. Brahma also holds a string of rosary beads that he uses to keep track of the Universe's time. He also is shown holding the Vedas, and sometimes, a lotus flower.

The Great Cycle of Brahma

Brahma enters cycles of night, day, and years just as all living

things do. The Great Cycle of Brahma controls the birth, life, and death of the universe. 4,320,000,000 years is the length of a Brahman day. A Brahman night is the same length, making the whole day/night cycle 8,640,000,000 years long. 360 day/night cycles make "One Year of Brahma" (3,110,400,000,000 years) . After 100 Brahman years (311,040,000,000,000 years) the cycle of creation is over, Shiva uses his destructive influence and the universe is dissolved. But after "One Year of Brahma" The god is recomposed and begins to dream the great lotus dream of the universe.

Brahma's vehicle is a divine Swan. It can separate mixed milk and water, which shows that justice should be dispensed to all creatures, however mixed it might be in a situation. Also, this virtue indicates that one should learn to separate the goo

d from the evil and then accep

t that which is valuable and discard that which is worthless or evil.

Why Does Zen have such a name?

To answer this question we have to have a bit of a look through the history of that very special and interesting religion.

Zen, as you might already know, is a branch of Buddhism, which emerged in the East (Bodhidharma is believed to be a Chinese Zen (Chan) founder, 6 AD). He is also believed to be a South Indian monk who travelled to China and established his own teaching school there. Then, as legends and tradition tell us, a disciple of the Third Chinese Zen Patriarch moved to Vietnam in 580 (forming Thien school). Korea got to know Zen (under the name Seon) in the 9 AD. In Japan they knew Zen (which is, actually, Japanese pronunciation) many centuries before, but original Zen school (Rinzai, Soto) emerged in the 12^th century. You see now, that's clear: more countries – more names!

If we will remember, that Bodhidharma came from India, we will find such words as Jhana in Pali and Dhyana in Sanskrit, with the latter giving life to the contemporary Zen word. Dhyana meant “mediation”, “deep concentration”, which, adopted to medieval Chinese language (may be, it sounded something like [dzjen] ), gained a short form “chan” (from “channa” < style="font-style: italic;">Chan”, in Cantonese - Sim, in Shanghainese – Zeu.

As you see, the sounds look very equal. The most used today word “Zen” is a Japanese version of the same hieroglyph!

So, don't be confused when you see words like “Chan”, “Zen” or others. They name the one thing, but are only different readings of the same sign, which meant at some point in the history “meditation”.

I'm waiting for your opinions. What do you think of this word?

Next time we will look at something connected to Christianity. Or are there other suggestions? Will read them carefully. See you Monday!