PRAJĀPATI belongs to the powerful ritual center of Vedic traditions and their discourses known as the Brāhmaṇas, where he is the supreme being and father of the gods. He is the link between the ancient Puruṣa mythology that instituted sacrifice, on the one hand, and the late Vedic bifurcation into a metaphysics of the impersonal Absolute (brahman) and the personal god Brahmā, on the other. In the religious history of South Asia, cosmogony, sacrifice, the soma cult, asceticism and self-mortification, the concept of salvation, the ritualization of procreation, and the advisory role of the grandfather of the gods are all dependent to a significant degree on the various guises of Prajāpati.

As lord (pati) of creatures (prajā), Prajāpati is best known in the tenth book of the Ṛgveda through speculations about the creation of the world. Identified there...