The universal belief in the efficacy of invocation as an indispensable adjunct to sacrifices and religious rites generally, could not fail to engender and maintain in the minds of the people feelings of profound esteem and reverence towards those who possessed the divine gift of inspired utterance, as well as for those who had acquired an intimate knowledge of the approved forms of ritual worship. A common designation of the priest is brahman (nom. _brahma_), originally denoting, it would seem, "one who prays, a worshipper," perhaps also "the composer of a hymn" (_brahman_, n.); and the same term came subsequently to be used not only for one of the sacerdotal order generally, but also, and more commonly, as the designation of a special class of priests who officiated as superintendents during sacrificial performances, the complicated nature of which required the co-operation of a whole staff of priests, and who accordingly were expected to possess a competent knowledge of the entire course of ritual procedure, including the correct form and mystic import of the sacred texts to be repeated or chanted by the several priests. The Brahman priest (_brahma_) being thus the recognized head of the sacerdotal order (_brahma_), which itself is the visible embodiment of sacred writ and the devotional spirit pervading it (_brahma_), the complete realization of theocratic aspirations required but a single step, which was indeed taken in the theosophic speculations of the later Vedic poets and the authors of the Brahmanas (q.v.), viz. the recognition of this abstract notion of the Brahma as the highest cosmic principle and its identification with the pantheistic conception of an all-pervading, self-existent spiritual substance, the primary source of the universe; and subsequently coupled therewith the personification of its creative energy in the form of Brahma, the divine representative of the earthly priest, who was made to take the place of the earlier conception of _Prajapati_, "the lord of creatures" (see BRAHMANISM). By this means the very name of this god expressed the essential oneness of his nature with that of the divine spirit as whose manifestation he was to be considered. In the later Vedic writings, especially the Brahmanas, however, Prajapati still maintains throughout his position as the paramount personal deity; and Brahma, in his divine capacity, is rather identified with Brihaspati, the priest of the gods. Moreover, the exact relationship between Prajapati and the Brahma (n.) is hardly as yet defined with sufficient precision; it is rather one of simple identification: in the beginning the Brahma was the All, and Prajapati is the Brahma. It is only in the institutes of Manu, where we find the system of castes propounded in its complete development, that Brahma has his definite place assigned to him in the cosmogony. According to this work, the universe, before undiscerned, was made discernible in the beginning by the sole, self-existent lord Brahma (n.). He, desirous of producing different beings from his own self, created the waters by his own thought, and placed in them a seed which developed into a golden egg; therein was born Brahma (m.), the parent of all the worlds; and thus "that which is the undiscrete Cause, eternal, which is and is not, from it issued that male who is called in the world Brahma." Having dwelt in that egg for a year, that lord spontaneously by his own thought split that egg in two; and from the two halves he fashioned the heaven and the earth, and in the middle, the sky, and the eight regions (the points of the compass), and the perpetual place of the waters. This theory of Brahma being born from a golden egg is, however, a mere adaptation of the Vedic conception of _Hiranya-garbha_ ("golden embryo"), who is represented as the supreme god in a hymn of the tenth (and last) book of the _Rigveda_. Another still later myth, which occurs in the epic poems, makes Brahma be born from a lotus which grew out of the navel of the god Vishnu whilst floating on the primordial waters. In artistic representations, Brahma usually appears as a bearded man of red colour with four heads crowned with a pointed, tiara-like head-dress, and four hands holding his sceptre, or a sacrificial spoon, a bundle of leaves representing the Veda, a bottle of water of the Ganges, and a string of beads or his bow Parivita. His vehicle (_vahana_) is a goose or swan (_hamsa_), whence he is also called _Hamsavhana_; and his consort is Sarasvati, the goddess of learning.