Christianity has its Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Hinduism also has a triune God, called trimurti, " God in three forms". These forms are Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Protector, and Shiva the Destroyer or Liberator.
Hindus believe that if they can visit the main temples of each of these three deities, all their wishes will be fulfilled. Brahma's temple is in eastern Rajastan. At Vishnu's main temple in Gaya in the state of Bihar, you can actually see his footprint in a black rock. Shiva's main center is in Vishvanath temple in the holy city of Benaras.
In the West, God the Father, " maker of heaven and earth", is our principle deity. While we have innumerable houses of worship to him, in all of India there are only four temples to Lord Brahma, the Creator! It wasn't always this way. Judging from the ancient Puranas, Brahma was once immensely popular in India. Then he made a mistake he's paying for this day.
According to legend, Brahma fell in love with his own daughter and tried to make love to her. Incest is a serious crime in India, and Brahma could not be allowed to set such a poor example for humanity. So Shiva the Destroyer cut off one of Brahma's five heads and sent him home to bed without his supper.
Now in Hinduism even the weirdest-sounding myths often turns out to have profound significance. Hindu teachers explain that Brahma was the creative spirit who found significance. Hindu teachers explain that Brahma was the creative spirit who fell in love with its daughter, matter. When spirit entered matter the whole world process began. But spirit lost part of itself when this happened. It lost its awareness of its true nature. So here we sit, all we children of Brahma, most of us completely unaware of our divine nature.
Curiously, in the Jewish and Christian Gnostic traditions, god the creator winds up in the doghouse, much like Brahma. The Gnostics were angry at yahweh for "trapping" their souls in the material realm. And for pretending to be the only true God when there were other Gods far more powerful than he was!Christian Gnostics believed Jesus' beloved Father was not the creator god of the Old Testament, but a God of light from a much higher dimension of reality, more like the Hindu god Vishnu.
When Brahma creates Matter, he enters into it to give it life (metaphorically seen as having sex with his daughter). So he is literally part of the Universe he created. Brahma does not exist in time and space as a separate being, but exists in the form of all beings - animate and inanimate from entire planets and constellations to individual creatures - great and small. Everytime we worship Creation, the Mother, Mother Nature, Mother Earth, the Goddess; we are worshipping Brahma. See http://www.sentforlife.com/hindugods.html#Brahma
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