While the miracles recorded in the Bible have become accepted facts {91} with the Christians, to disbelieve which is regarded as infidelity, the narratives of wonders and prodigies found in the _Atharva-Veda_,[175] either provoke their contempt or are viewed as evidences of diabolism. And yet, in more than one respect, and notwithstanding the unwillingness of certain Sanscrit scholars, we can show the identity between the two. Moreover, as the Vedas have now been proved by scholars to antedate the Jewish _Bible_ by many ages, the inference is an easy one that if one of them has borrowed from the other, the Hindu sacred books are not to be charged with plagiarism. First of all, their cosmogony shows how erroneous has been the opinion prevalent among the civilized nations that Brahma was ever considered by the Hindus their chief or Supreme God. Brahma is a secondary deity, and like Jehovah is “a _mover of the waters_.” He is the _creating_ god, and has in his allegorical representations four heads, answering to the four cardinal points. He is the demiurgos, the _architect_ of the world. “In the primordiate state of the creation,” says Polier’s _Mythologie des Indous_, “the rudimental universe, submerged in water, reposed in the bosom of the Eternal. Sprang from this chaos and darkness, Brahma, the architect of the world, poised on a lotus-leaf floated (moved?) upon the waters, unable to discern anything but water and darkness.” This is as identical as possible with the Egyptian cosmogony, which shows in its opening sentences Athtor[176] or Mother Night (which represents illimitable darkness) as the primeval element which covered the infinite abyss, animated by water and the universal spirit of the Eternal, dwelling alone in Chaos. As in the Jewish Scriptures, the history of the creation opens with the spirit of God and his creative emanation—another Deity.[177] Perceiving such a dismal state of things, Brahma soliloquizes in consternation: “Who am I? Whence came I?” Then he hears a voice: “Direct your prayer to Bhagavant—the Eternal, known, also, as Parabrahma.” Brahma, rising from his natatory position, seats himself upon the lotus in an attitude of contemplation, and reflects upon the Eternal, who, pleased with this evidence of piety, disperses the primeval darkness and opens his understanding. “After this Brahma issues from the universal egg—(infinite chaos) as _light_, for his understanding is now opened, and he sets himself to work; he _moves_ on the eternal waters, with the spirit of God within himself; in his capacity of _mover_ of the waters he is _Narayana_.”