In the Vischnu Purana, Brahma, at the head of the gods, adores Vischnu as the Supreme Being whom he himself cannot understand.
The power of ascetic penances is highly extolled in the Puranas, as also in the epics.

In the Bhagavat it is said that Brahma, by a penitence of sixteen thousand years, created the universe.

It is even told in the Ramayana, that a sage of a lower caste became a Brahman by dint of austerities, in spite of the gods who considered such a confusion of castes a breach of Hindoo etiquette.[90] To prevent him from continuing his devotions, they sent a beautiful nymph to tempt him, and their daughter was the famous Sakuntala.

But in the end, the obstinate old ascetic conquered the gods, and when they still refused to Brahmanize him, he began to create new heavens and new gods, and had already made a few stars, when the deities thought it prudent to yield, and allowed him to become a Brahman.

It is also mentioned that the Ganges, the sacred river, in the course of her wanderings, overflowed the sacrificial ground of another powerful ascetic, who incontinently drank up, in his anger, all its waters, but was finally induced by the persuasions of the gods to set the river free again by discharging it from his ears.