Page talk:Fables and Proverbs from the Sanskrit, being the Hitopadesa.djvu/11

"Brahma who gave forth Brahmá" --spelling difference is probably right.
I noted the "sic" template which I have removed for now, because when I looked it up I found that "Brahma" is the essence and Brahmá is the personal god; that's why I didn't sic it when I first read it, because when you think about it, how does giving birth to yourself make sense? But an essence giving rise to a list of personal gods, as here where it says, "Brahma who gave forth Brahmá, Vishnu and Siva to create, preserve, destroy;..." it makes sense that there is a distinction and apparently this is reflected in the spelling, although I probably would need a better reference than the one I found to back it up officially.--hopefully will find one eventually.

The author asserts this is quoted from Webster 1913, I think; it says,

"Brah"ma (?), n. [See Brahman.]

1. Hindoo Myth.

The One First Cause; also, one of the triad of Hindoo gods. The triad consists of Brahma, the Creator, Vishnu, the Preserver, and Siva, the Destroyer.

⇒ According to the Hindoo religious books, Brahma (with the final a short), or Brahm, is the Divine Essence, the One First Cause, the All in All, while the personal gods, Brahmá (with the final a long), Vishnu, and Siva, are emanations or manifestations of Brahma the Divine Essence." https://everything2.com/title/Brahma

Note the variations in spelling in this above passage too.

I am fairly certain this is correct because of my personal study of Buddhism and the fact that it clears up the confusion that I have had over Brahma as the essence or soul and Brahmá the god who visits the Buddha after the Buddha's enlightenment to persuade him to teach the Dhamma.

Aha! I just remembered that I have a digital version of the Gale Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition, Thomson, 2005, which a quick search suggests may not be available anymore. Anyway, in volume II, pp 1023, it indicates Brahma with the long "a" refers to the creator god, and Brahman the godhead, but after that it gets complicated and there are variations in spelling. But it must be remembered, and I seem to recall from one of my Indian teachers that there are about 14 official languages in India and hundreds of dialects and interpretations of texts and so I expect that what we have here is just a certain version of the thing, which may become more obvious as we go along, if we ever get through this tomb! :-) Sacle1 (talk) 11:07, 2 April 2024 (UTC)