The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (445 page)

 
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(Skt.,
b
h
, ‘prayer’, +
pati
, ‘Lord’).
1
A
Vedic
god who embodies, not a natural phenomenon, but reason and moral judgement.
2
A Hindu teacher of materialism: see
C
RV
KA
.

 
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(Fr., ‘doing odd jobs’). A characteristic (according to C.
Lévi-Strauss
) of the early human mind, in contrast to modern scientific thinking. But bricolage is entirely rational (i.e. not pre-rational). A
bricoleur
is one who improvises and uses any means or materials which happen to be lying around in order to tackle a task. In the making of
myth
, bricolage is the use of whatever happens to be ‘lying around’, so that myth is both rational and also improvisatory.

 
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Bridegroom of the Law
.

In Judaism, the reader who is called up to read the last portion of the
Pentateuch
(Deuteronomy 33. 27–34. 12) in the morning service on the Jewish festival of
Sim
at Torah
(‘the Rejoicing in the Law’). It is common for the ‘bridegrooms’ to give a party for the congregation after the service.

 
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