The Mahabharata says that Brahma's heaven is eight hundred miles long, four hundred wide, and forty high. Narada declared himself incompetent to describe it. In two hundred years he could not mention all its excellences. He said that it contained in a superior degree all the excellences of the other heavens; and that whatever existed in the creation of Brahma' on earth, from the smallest insect to the largest animal, was to be found there.

In the later mythology, a deity named Dhata (the Creator), who in the Rig-Veda has no very clearly-defined powers, but is there said to operate in the

production of life and the preservation of health, is identified with Prajapati, or Brahma; and in the sense of "maker " the term is also applied to Vishnu and Krishna. Sometimes he is said to be a son of Brahma. [**]

In addition to the names of Brahma already referred to, the following are those most commonly known:--

Atmabhu, "The self-existent."

Paramesthi, "The chief sacrificer." He as the first Brahman performed all the great sacrifices of the Hindu religion.

Lokesha, "The god of the world."

Hiranyagarbha, "He who came from the golden egg."

Savitripati, "The husband of Savitri."

Adikavi, The first poet."

SARASVATI.

Brahma's wife is Sarasvati, the goddess of wisdom and science, the mother of the Vedas, and the inventor of the Devanagari letters. She is represented as a fair young woman, with four arms. With one of her right hands she is presenting a flower to her husband, by whose side she continually stands; and in the other she holds a book of palm-leaves, indicating that she is fond of learning. In one of her left hands she has a string of pearls, called Sivamala (Siva's garland), which serves as a rosary; and in the other is a damaru, or small drum. At other times she is represented with two arms only, seated on a lotus, playing a kind of banjo. She dwells on earth amongst men, but her special abode is with her husband in Brahmaloka.

Sarasvati having been produced from Brahma, was regarded as his daughter; hence her union with him

was said to be criminal by the other gods. Sometimes she is called the wife of Vishnu, but this difficulty is explained by a legend. [**] "Sarasvati, by the standard mythological authorities, is the wife of Brahma. The Vaishnavas of Bengal have a popular legend that she was the wife of Vishnu, as were also Lakshmi and Ganga. The ladies disagreed, Sarasvati, like the other

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SARASVATI.

type of learned ladies, Minerva, being something of a termagant; and Vishnu, finding that one wife was as much as even a god could manage, transferred Sarasvati to Brahma and Ganga to Siva, and contented himself with Lakshmi alone.