Jagatpita Brahma Mandir, Pushkar

Of the great gods Brahma is the least often housed, and that is what makes this ground precious. The Ministry of Tourism states it carefully: there are only a few Brahma temples in the world, and this one is the oldest among them — while Rajasthan's tourism department goes further and calls it the only temple in the world dedicated to Lord Brahma. Here the Creator is Jagatpita, and his darshan is held to open the way to liberation.

How the worship came to rest here is told at two shrines. The hour of the yajna could not be held back, tradition relates, and Devi Savitri had not yet come; Gayatri was brought to the seat beside the Lord and the rite was completed. When Savitri came she spoke the word that has bound her lord's worship to Pushkar from that day. Gayatri is enthroned with Brahma in the sanctum; Savitri's temple stands above the town on Ratnagiri hill, six hundred and fifty stone steps or a ropeway up, and the aarti, the Ministry records, is offered at her shrine first and at Brahma's after.

The inner sanctum is in the keeping of a priesthood of sannyasis — the ascetic sect, as the Ministry's account puts it — and a pilgrim's offering passes to the Creator through their hands.

Below lies the water the shastras call Tirtha Raj, king of all tirthas and the most sacred of the five sarovars; fifty-two bathing ghats step down into it, and over five hundred temples crowd its banks. The year turns on Kartik. Through the bright half of that month the ghats fill for the Kartik snan, and on Kartik Purnima — the full moon on which, tradition holds, thirty-three crore devas came down to hallow this lake — Pushkar keeps its greatest day, and the mela gathers about it.

Pushkar lies in Ajmer district, in a fold of the Aravalli where a lake rests among sand and hills. Tradition gives the water to Brahma himself: a lotus fell from the Creator's hand, and where its petals touched the earth the lake rose — Pushkar, the town named for that flower. The Ministry of Tourism's account carries the older half: that Brahma came down to still the asura Vajranabha and, that done, set himself to a yajna on the lake's bank. Rajasthan's tourism department tells it more simply: Brahma came upon earth to perform a yajna and chose this site for his temple.

How old the shrine is, no record settles. Rajasthan's account calls the structure about two thousand years old while dating what stands today to the fourteenth century; the Ministry writes that it has been remodelled over a span of two thousand years, and names Vishwamitra as the one widely held to have raised it. The renovation is remembered for Adi Shankaracharya — in the eighth century, Rajasthan says — and the present fabric is credited to Maharaja Jawat Raj of Ratlam. The Archaeological Survey of India lists Brahmaji Temple, Pushkar among the centrally protected monuments of Ajmer district.

The temple stands on a high plinth, steps rising to an entrance of carving and pillared canopies. Within is a broad pillared mandapa, and beyond it the garbhagriha, where the chaturmukhi murti of Brahma sits cross-legged in marble with Gayatri beside him. Marble and stone slabs make the fabric, the blocks joined with molten lead; devotees have studded floor and wall with thousands of silver coins, each carrying a name. The red shikhara is seen from far off, and the hamsa is the temple's own mark. A marble Surya stands sentinel — shown, alone among the gods, in an ancient warrior's boots.