Devalok
Local story · 1 telling · Northeast India

The Brahmaputra, son of Brahma

Who is in it

Places: Brahmaputra river

The story, beat by beat

  1. Brahma sees Amogha, wife of the sage Shantanu, and desires her.
  2. She refuses him.
  3. A child, Lauhitya, is nonetheless born of Brahma's seed through the sage's agency.
  4. The child takes the form of water.
  5. He becomes the river called Brahmaputra, the son of Brahma.

desire river origin refusal

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Media

Kalika Purana, as retold in the Assamese press

Northeast India · Assam All traditions

Assam's great river carries Brahma's name because the Kalika Purana makes it his son. The creator is taken with Amogha, the wife of the sage Shantanu, and is turned away; but the seed of the god does not go to waste, and through the sage's own doing a boy named Lauhitya, the red one, is born to Amogha. The child does not stay a child: he becomes water, and the water becomes the river that flows through the Brahmaputra valley. The story is known in the region through newspaper and web retellings rather than through a translation of the Purana.

Pot-Pourri: Son of Lord Brahma — The Sentinel (Assam); Religious significance of the Brahmaputra river — The Divine India

Sources: Pot-Pourri: Son of Lord Brahma — The Sentinel (Assam); Religious significance of the Brahmaputra river — The Divine India

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