Talk:Prajapati

Prajapati lord of beasts

I think you mean Pashupati, the Harappan seals mentioned in Flood "Introduction to Hinduism" on p28-29 are of Shiva, not Prajapati Zero sharp 04:29, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I have no doubt someone somewhere has drawn the connection, but as it is the claim should be removed as unreferenced. dab (𒁳) 11:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The ten lords or eleven lords of Prajapati

This pages says ten lords then lists eleven, is this a mistake or some sort of mystical concept. Okay didnt see the Or, nothing to see here move along. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.111.151.130 (talk) 11:29, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Pashupati = Prajapati?

We currently have two articles, Pashupati and Prajapati which make no reference to each other. The former spelling is commonly used for quite an ancient deity, considered an epithet of Shiva. Prajapati is also considered (in later times at least) an aspect of Shiva or Vishnu. Are they just different spellings of the same name, or is there some more substantial difference? Should these articles be merged? Fuzzypeg★ 23:56, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I've just managed to find an answer to my own question. Pashupati = "Lord of Animals" and Prajapati = "Lord of the people". So they're different. Fuzzypeg★ 00:04, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

And now looking at the articles, I see different translations again, "Lord of cattle" and "Lord of creatures". But they're clearly different epithets, that much I can tell. Fuzzypeg★ 00:07, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Mahabharata mention in Post-Vedic texts

I ask this more for my own benefit. This article writes under the subheading Post-Vedic Texts that: "In the Mahabharata, Brahma is declared to be a Prajapati who creates many males and females, and imbues them with desire and anger, the former to drive them into reproducing themselves and the latter to prevent them from being like gods."

I like this way of thinking. Where in the Mahabharata? It's rather known for having many many verses. 77.97.187.243 (talk) 18:05, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Jan Gonda citations seem to have an agenda - how do we fix this?

Jan Gonda's citations seem to have some kind of agenda to separate the Brahmana Prajapati from the Vedic layer of Hindu literature. What kind of statements is this:

"He is missing from the Samhita layer of Vedic literature, conceived in the Brahmana layer, states Jan Gonda. "

"In the Rigveda, Prajapati appears as an epithet for Savitr, Soma, Agni and Indra, who are all praised as equal, same and lord of creatures. Elsewhere, in hymn 10.121 of the Rigveda, is described Hiranyagarbha (golden embryo) that was born from the waters containing everything, which produced Prajapati. It then created manah (mind), kama (desire) and tapas (heat). However, this Prajapati is a metaphor, one of many Hindu cosmology theories, and there is no supreme deity in the Rigveda. One of the striking features about the Hindu Prajapati myths, states Jan Gonda, is the idea that work of creation is a gradual process, completed in stages of trial and improvement."

In the context of 10.122, Prajapati is given as "The Supreme", as are many Gods in their respective hymns. Prajapati is a Deity and not a mere metaphor. The 10.122 hymn literally says oblations are being made to Prajapati as would any deity (10.122.10).

The agenda is apparent when you read a neutral modern commentary + translation of the hymn (Stephanie Jamison, Joel Brereton, Oxford Press 2014):

X.121 (947) Ka “Who?”

Hiraṇyagarbha Prājāpatya 10 verses: triṣṭubh

This hymn takes the form of a cosmogony, but here the creative principle is unnamed or has no name. Rather than declaring its deity, the hymn’s refrain is a question: “Who is the god to whom we should do homage with our oblation?” Although without a name, the deity has a form. In the first verse the poet calls it hiraṇyagarbhá “the golden embryo” (vs. 1a), the yolk of an egg (cf. Lommel 1939), thus anticipating later myths of creation from a world-egg (e.g., Vāmana Purāṇa Saromāhātmya XXII.17). But the “golden embryo” is also the sun, which here is born as the center of the cosmos. Toward the end of the hymn, in verse 7, the poet gives the still unnamed principle a second identity not just as a god but as “the life of the gods” (devā́nām...ásuḥ). The last verse finally attaches a name to the unnamed principle, but this verse is a later addition (Oldenberg 1888: 248), reflect- ing a redactional effort not to leave the mystery of this principle unresolved. In that verse the deity is revealed to be Prajāpati who in the Brāhmaṇas is both the creator god and the archetype of the sacrifice. Later tradition confirms the identity of this principle by understanding the constantly repeated ká “who?” to be a name of Prajāpati. Accordingly the Anukramaṇī desig- nates Ka as the deity of this hymn.

In a very perceptive interpretation of the hymn Proferes (2007: 140–41) shows the relation of this hymn to the ideology of kingship. In the royal unction ritual the king is reborn by means of the unction waters as a being with the power and brilliance of the sun. This hymn reproduces the elements of that rite: the conception of an embryo

(vss. 1, 7) and a ruler (vss. 1, 2, 3), the waters (vss. 7, 8, 9) that bear an embryo (vs. 7), and the birth of fire (vs. 7). The unnamed principle encompasses the entire world (vss. 4, 5, 10), and its power extends in every direction (vs. 4) and over every being (vss. 2, 3, 8), as the king (ideally) is the master of the world, whose power extends everywhere. Likewise, the unnamed principle supports the world—making it firm (vs. 5) and steady (vss. 5, 6)—and gives it life (vss. 2, 7), as the king maintains and preserves the world.

Structurally, the hymn is organized as an almost unbroken series of dependent clauses. The first series of relative clauses, hanging off the main clauses in verse 1, lasts from verses 2 through 6. Verse 7 then re-establishes the pattern, for it has a main clause, on which the relative clauses in verse 8 depend. The phrase “he alone existed” in verses 1b and 8c create a ring, which defines the boundaries of the main body of the hymn. Outside this ring and outside the main body of the hymn, verse 9 repeats in miniature the pattern of preceding verses. It has a main clause in 9a, which is followed by three more relative clauses and concluded by the refrain. The verse is an appeal to the unnamed deity to do no harm, making it also thematically distinct from the main body of the hymn. Like verse 10, it too may have been a later addition, as Thieme (1964: 69) has asserted.

1. The golden embryo evolved in the beginning. Born the lord of what came to be, he alone existed.

He supports the earth and the heaven here— – Who is the god to whom we should do homage with our oblation?

2. Who is the giver of breath, the giver of strength; whose command all honor, whose command the gods honor;

whose shadow is immortality, whose shadow is death— – Who is the god to whom we should do homage with our oblation?

3. Who became king of the breathing, blinking, moving world—just he alone by his greatness;

who is lord of the two-footed and four-footed creatures here— – Who is the god to whom we should do homage with our oblation?

4. Whose are these snow-covered mountains [=the Himalayas] in their greatness; whose is the sea together with the world-stream, they say;

whose are these directions, whose (their) two arms [=the zenith and nadir?]— – Who is the god to whom we should do homage with our oblation?

5. By whom the mighty heaven and earth were made firm; by whom the sun was steadied, by whom the firmament;

who was the one measuring out the airy realm in the midspace— – Who is the god to whom we should do homage with our oblation?

6. Toward whom the two battle lines [=heaven and earth] looked, steadied with his help, though trembling in mind,

(those) upon which the risen sun radiates. – Who is the god to whom we should do homage with our oblation

7. When the lofty waters came, receiving everything as an embryo and giving birth to the fire,

then the life of the gods evolved alone— – Who is the god to whom we should do homage with our oblation?

8. Who by his greatness surveyed the waters receiving (ritual) skill (as an embryo) and giving birth to the sacrifice;

who, the god over gods, alone existed. – Who is the god to whom we should do homage with our oblation?

9. Let him not do us harm—he who is the progenitor of earth or who, with foundations that are real, engendered heaven,

and who engendered the gleaming, lofty waters. – Who is the god to whom we should do homage with our oblation?

10. O Prajāpati! No one other than you has encompassed all these things that have been born.

Let what we desire as we make oblation to you be ours. We would be lords of riches. Deadavenger0 (talk) 21:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC)