sire of the human race, and more complete than the mutilated sculpture of Elephanta. Here the faces are bearded, as in all the Java representations of Brahman sages. The clasped hands in front of the body hold a vessel in the form of a lotus bud containing the elixir of life. His other attributes appearing in the sculpture are the hermit's jar for the holy water which gives life to the earth, the lotus flower, and the royal swan. Those which are missing are the Brahman hermit's sacrificial ladle and his rosary.
Brahmā, originally the Supreme God of the Brahmans, has now been merged in the two chief cults of modern Hinduism, centred in the worship of Vishnu and Siva. Vishnu, as his name signifies, is said to pervade all space: he is Ākāsha-garbha, the Container of Ether. But as distinguished from Brahma he is the sun at noon supporting the heavens (Vishnu-Sūrya), or the sun at midnight under the earth reposing on the coils of the serpent of eternity (Ananta or Sēsha), the Milky Way. In this aspect he is known as Vishnu-Nārāyana. His colour is blue, the deep transparent blue of the Himālayan sky after the monsoon rains, and his flower, as we have seen, is the blue lotus, or water-lily. His shrine should face the east, so that Lakshmi, the Day-goddess, his bride, may enter as she rises from the cosmic ocean every morning to greet her spouse. He rides on Garuda, the Himālayan eagle. In his universal form as the all-pervading, everlasting Cause he is described in the Bhagavad Gītā as too terrible for ordinary mortal vision.[1] But as the supporter of the heavens, and as the midnight sun slumbering under the cosmic ocean, he is represented as the Aryan warrior king armed with the terrific weapon, the Chakra or discus, besides the sword, bow,
- ↑ See Ideals of Indian Art, by the Author, pp. 56-7.
