Brahma- Buddhist GodDeity"King of the Higher Gods"

The Request

After his awakening under the Bodhi tree, the Buddha considered whether to teach the dharma at all. It was too subtle. Beings lost in greed and hatred would not understand it. Brahma Sahampati appeared before him and pleaded. "There are beings with only a little dust in their eyes," Brahma said, "who are wasting away through not hearing the dharma. They would become knowers of the dharma." The Buddha surveyed the world with his divine eye, saw that Brahma was right, and agreed to teach.

The First Being

The Brahmajala Sutta tells how Brahma came to believe he was the creator of all things. When a world system re-forms after cosmic dissolution, the first being to appear in the new Brahma realm finds himself alone. He wishes for company. Other beings eventually arise, and Brahma assumes he willed them into existence. When some of these beings later fall to the human realm and recall that Brahma existed before them, they conclude he must be the eternal creator. He is not. He is the oldest being in a world that has no creator. He mistook the accident of arriving first for the act of making everything.

The Brahma Worlds

In Buddhist cosmology, the Brahma realms occupy the Form Realm: planes attained by beings who cultivate deep meditative absorption. Their inhabitants have radiant bodies of pure light and lifespans measured in cosmic ages. The four brahmaviharas, the mental states that lead to rebirth there, bear Brahma's name: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.