and requiring continual infusions of life-
sustaining blood to maintain their pow-
ers. See also witchcraft.
Boar Avatar
The third avatar, or “incarnation,” of the
god Vishnu. Vishnu takes this form at
the beginning of one of the cosmic ages,
when the process of creation has been
interrupted by the disappearance of the
Earth. The source of this problem is the
demon-king Hiranyaksha, who has
kidnapped the Earth and hidden her in
the depths of the cosmic ocean. Taking
the form of a giant boar, Vishnu dives to
the bottom of the ocean, where he slays
Hiranyaksha, places the Earth on the tip
of his tusk, and lifts her from the waters.
With the reappearance of the Earth, the
process of creation resumes.
It is generally accepted that the
avatar doctrine provided a way to assim-
ilate smaller regional deities into the
larger pantheon by designating them as
forms of Vishnu. This inference is
supported by the Boar avatar, which
seems to have absorbed an ancient cult
in central India by making the boar an
incarnation of Vishnu. In modern times
the Boar avatar is worshiped little,
although it had a significant following
in the past, particularly in central
India. This is partly supported by the
sculptural record; the caves at Ellora
and Udayagiri have particularly
fine sculptural renditions of this
avatar. For further information see
Arthur Llewellyn Basham, The Wonder
That Was India, 1968.
Bose, Subhash Chandra
(1896–1945) Bengali politician and free-
dom fighter. Before World War II, Bose
had unsuccessfully contested with
Mohandas K. Gandhifor the leadership
of the Congress Party. Bose was more
impatient than Gandhi for the British to
leave, and he was more willing to expel
them by force. During World War II, Bose
used Japanese patronage to form the
Indian National Army (INA), whose
objective was to expel the British from
India by armed force. Starting in
Singapore the INAmarched 5,000 miles
through Southeast Asia, but they were
ultimately defeated by the British army
at the city of Kohima in eastern India.
Although there is eyewitness testimony
that Bose died from burns stemming
from a plane crash in the final days of
the Pacific war, even today many
Bengalis believe that he is still alive and
living incognito.Brahma
Brahma is the first member of the
Trimurti, the “three forms” of divinity
made up of the dominant male deities
in the Hindu pantheon: Brahma as the
creator of the universe, Vishnuas the
preserver or sustainer, and Shivaas the
destroyer. Brahma is usually portrayed
with four heads (the fifth having been
cut off by Bhairava, a wrathful form of
Shiva), and his animalvehicle is the
hamsa, or Indian goose.
According to one widely held myth,
during the time of cosmic dissolution
between world cycles, Vishnu floats in
the middle of the cosmic ocean, lying
on the giant serpent Shesha. When the
time for creation comes, a lotus
sprouts from Vishnu’s navel and opens
to reveal Brahma inside. Brahma takes
up the work of creation, and at the end
of the world cycle, Brahma returns to
the lotus, which is reabsorbed into
Vishnu. Because of his spontaneous
appearance at the beginning of every
cosmic age, one of the names for
Brahma is Svayambhu (“self-born”).
Unlike the Judeo-Christian belief, the
world is not created from nothing.
Brahma merely arranges the existing
elements of the universe into a coher-
ent and ordered cosmos.
Brahma is a major figure in the pan-
theon and is prominent in many
episodes in Hindu mythology. His myth-
ic presence often obscures the fact that
he is never worshiped as a primary
deity. In fact, he has only one temple
devoted to him in all of India, inBrahma