Devalok
Origin · 2 tellings · Pan-India

The mind-born sons, Narada and Daksha

Who is in it

The story, beat by beat

  1. Brahma wishes for children and brings them out of his own mind.
  2. Sages such as Narada, Bhrigu, Marichi, Atri and Vasishtha are born this way, along with the four Kumaras.
  3. Daksha and his wife come out of Brahma's right and left thumbs.
  4. Daksha becomes a Prajapati under Brahma and father of Sati.
  5. Shatarupa and Svayambhuva Manu begin the human line.

creation lineage mind born

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Encyclopedia

Puranas

Pan-India All traditions

Brahma's first children need no mother. Wanting a world of beings, he thinks them into existence, and the scriptures call these the mind-born. The list varies but reaches as far as Agni, Angiras, Atri, Bhrigu, Chitragupta, Daksha, Himavan, Jambavan, Kama, Kratu, the Kumaras, Marichi, Narada, Pulaha, Pulastya, Shatarupa, Svayambhuva Manu and Vasishtha. Narada, the wandering sage with the lute, is the best loved of them; his famous curse falls on Vishnu, not on his father.

Brahma — Wikipedia; Narada — Wikipedia

Encyclopedia

Mahabharata

Pan-India All traditions

The epic gives Daksha a body rather than a thought as his origin: he and his wife step out of Brahma's right and left thumbs. He had been an aditya in the Rigveda; now he is made a Prajapati, a lord of creatures under Brahma, and the great sacrifice at which his daughter Sati dies, Virabhadra's rampage and the goat's head that replaces his own all follow from that office.

What is different here:

Daksha's birth from the thumbs; sets up the Daksha-yajna cycle carried in the Shiva file.

Daksha — Wikipedia

Sources: Brahma — Wikipedia; Narada — Wikipedia; Daksha — Wikipedia

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