Brahma

Black stone figure of Lord Brahma who is crowned, four-headed and represented with a beard. He has four arms and is seated in the lotus position on a lotus pedestal with a hamsa, or goose, at the front. The upper hands are raised and each holds a Veda text, the lower left rests on a round object, possibly a water pot, the lower right holds a rosary, known as the 'akṣamālā' (literally 'garland of eyes'). He is rather corpulent and has a diagonal incision his body indicating an upper body garment, and incisions across his legs indocatin the hem of his skirt cloth.

Collection Information

These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.

The database sometimes uses language taken from historical documents to help research, which may now appear outdated and even offensive. The database also includes information on objects that are considered secret or sacred by some communities.

If you have any further information about objects in our collections or can suggest corrections to our information, please contact us: enquiry@horniman.ac.uk