Lord Brahma’s Attraction for his Daughter Shatarupa Explained
Many people raise objections on Hindus by saying that the creator God of Hinduism, Lord Brahma fell in love with his own daughter Shatarupa. Many of you have asked me to explain this story as this is a clear case of Incest in Hinduism being performed by a Hindu God. In this article I am going to explain to you the attraction of Lord Brahma towards his daughter Shatarupa
The first thing you must understand is that there is no real Brahma with four heads who flies on a swan. If you think that there is a man with four heads called Brahma who physically exists in this world then your level of understanding about Hinduism is very limited. As I have mentioned previously, you should never take the stories of the puranas literally. These stories are parables representing mental activities going on inside our mind. With this understanding let us look at this story.
The short summary of the story goes as follows:
When Brahma created this universe, the first thing he created was a Goddess named Shatarupa, he was immediately infatuated by her and pursued her wherever she went. Shatarupā moved in various directions to avoid his gaze but wherever she went, Brahmā developed another head until he had four heads, one for each direction in which she went. Desperate, Shatarupa leaped over him to stay out of his gaze just for a moment. But to keep looking at her, Brahma’s fifth head, appeared above the other four. At this moment Shiva appeared, and in a rage severed Brahma’s top head.
Now, first of all, the objection that Hindus worship a God who was attracted towards his own daughter is invalid, because Hindus do not worship Lord Brahma. One of the reasons on why we do not worship Lord Brahma is because of this very story that he fell in love with his own daughter. However, people might still object that why is Lord Brahma then part of the Hindu trinity. So. let me explain the philosophical idea behind this whole story.
There are two different ways of looking at this world, one way is to look at this world to be objective and the other is to consider this world to be subjective. Objective outlook puts focus on the world outside us, while subjective outlook puts focus on the world as we are experiencing it. Most of the Western religions which includes Christianity and Islam look at this world objectively, this is why these religions are primarily outwardly focused. These religions consider that this world was created by God and then he placed humanity in it. Eastern religions which includes Hinduism and Buddhism on the other hand are subjective in nature. These religions look at this world to be a creation of divine consciousness which is inside us all and is experiencing it. This difference is what causes all this confusion. Since Islam and Christianity dominated the Indian subcontinent for 800 years, we have forgotten our outlook and therefore get confused.
In my previous article on why Hindus do not worship Lord Brahma, I have explained that Lord Brahma is a representation of a deluded soul, which has not yet freed itself from the bondage of Maya. As We know from the Puranas that Bramha was born out of a lotus that sprouted from the navel of Vishnu. This represents the birth of a soul into this physical world. Only that soul takes birth who has still not succeeded in overcoming the delusion of Maya. When a person has not attained enlightenment, he feels attracted to all the shiny objects that this world puts in front of him and goes running after it. This is the situation we all are born into.
As mentioned above, the outlook of Dharmic Religions puts more focus on the world, as we experience it. With this point of view, we ourselves are the creators of this universe. This is our subjective reality, which includes our aspirations, hopes and biases. Brahma as a creator God is the creator of this universe, which is called the Brahmaand. You must understand that this Brahmaand is not the objective universe, it is just the universe as perceived by us. The objective universe which is eternal, which was never created and which will never be destroyed is called Prakriti. The universe that Shiva destroys is this subjective universe of Brahma. As you can see that this is very different from the idea of creator God in western religions, who created this universe in 6 days.
The subjective reality of each individual is incomplete as it is influenced by the biases of the individual who has created it. This incomplete understanding of things is the ignorance that entangles us in this world of Maya. This world of Maya is created by the Brahma inside us; therefore, this subjective universe is the daughter of Brahma. Since this universe includes so many attractive things that attract the individual towards them, the name given to the Goddess who represents this world is named Shatarupa, which means the one which has a hundred different forms.
All of us are attached to this world of ours that we have created in our minds and we always feel attracted to it. This is what is represented by Brahma falling in love with his own daughter. Since incest is a taboo, this image beautifully portrays this mistake of ours. When Brahma is attracted to Shatarupa, he develops four different heads which look at her in all the four directions wherever she goes. This represents an ego which is mesmerized by the world it has created and sees it everywhere. When Shatarupa tries to hide from him, a fifth head of Brahma sprouts up, which represents the head of delusion. Brahma is so lost in his own creation that he is no longer seeing the reality and is completely deluded. This is where Shiva comes in and cuts off his fifth head. This represents that Shiva the destroyer inside us has destroyed the world of Maya created by the Brahma inside us.
This whole story is a brilliant philosophical exposition of a complex idea that is not very easy to understand and will be very dry if told literally. To make it easy to follow and convenient to stick with us, our ancestors presented it in this story form. I hope that now you understand why Brahma fell in love with his own daughter and in future if someone asks you on this, you will be able to provide an appropriate explanation of it.
Originally published at https://stoicsadhu.com on July 25, 2020.
