The Encyclopedia of World Religions

58 S Brahma

Before the coming of Buddhism, Bon-pos seem to have practiced elaborate rituals to ensure the fate of the soul, especially the souls of kings, after death. In the eighth and ninth centuries, however, Bon was suppressed in favor of Buddhism. It has been a minority religion ever since. After the ninth century Bon developed forms very similar to Buddhism. Today it recognizes an enlightened being, similar to the B UDDHA , named Tonpa Shenrap; he is said to have revealed the truth of Bon teaching. It also has a monastic tradi tion, a large body of literature, and its own deities, whom Buddhists have adopted as lesser gods. Bon RITUALS are similar to Tibetan Buddhist rituals, but they differ in some details. For example, Bon-pos circumambulate or walk around sacred sites coun terclockwise: Buddhists circumambulate clock wise. Bon priests also have a distinctive headcov ering: They wear black hats instead of the yellow or red hats worn by members of some Buddhist schools. Only recently has Bon literature started to become accessible to North American and Euro pean scholars. Brahma The creator god in texts of Hindu mythology known as the P URANAS . The Pura nas identify three families of deities according to function. The heads of these families are Brahma the creator, V ISHNU the preserver, and S IVA the destroyer. The name Brahma is related to BRAHMAN , the word for the ultimate reality that, according to the U PANISHADS and V EDANTA philosophy, underlies all appearances. Indeed, in some contexts the two words have the very same form. So it is possible that modern readers have sometimes mistaken the one for the other. Several myths connect Brahma with the ori gin of the world at the beginning of each cycle of generation and decay. For example, one well known image depicts Brahma as seated on a LOTUS , which grows from the navel of Vishnu while the latter sleeps on the coiled world-ser pent Sesha. Myths also tell of Brahma grant ing the gift of eternal life. Despite such myths, Brahma is rarely worshipped.

brahman A crucial idea in H INDUISM , especially in the U PANISHADS and V EDANTA philosophy. Brah man refers to the reality that underlies and sup ports the world as it appears to the senses. Originally, brahman referred to the ritual for mulas spoken during the SACRIFICES described in the sacred books known as the V EDA . In this sense, brahman is related to two other words: BRAHMIN or “priest,” the name of the RITUAL class in Hinduism whose members performed the sacrifice, and Brah manas, the commentaries on the ritual texts of the Veda. The Brahmanas identified rich webs of con nections between the world at large and the Vedic sacrifices. They refer to brahman as the energy that made the sacrifices work. The Upanishads have a wider view of brah man. In them brahman is no longer limited to the sacrifice. Instead, it is considered to be the unseen, unseeable support for everything that is seen. The Upanishads teach many things about this brahman, and what they teach is not always consistent. For example, some verses of the Upanishads claim that everything is brahman. Others deny that brahman can be identified with anything. Many passages, however, assert that the brahman is identical with the reality that underlies the human person, which is often known as ATMAN . It is difficult to grasp what is unseen and unseeable. The Upanishads try to understand brahman in many ways. One particularly impor tant method that they use is known as regressive reasoning. A person takes up an object for con sideration, say, the body. She or he asks what supports that object, then what supports the sup port, and so on. The hope is that the procedure will eventually work back to what supports or sustains all things. A famous example occurs in the text known as the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. That Upanishad records a series of questions that Gargi Vacaknavi asks her husband, Yajnavalkya. Gargi first asks what sustains water. Then she goes through a series that includes such items as wind and the worlds of sun, moon, and stars. Her ques tioning eventually leads her to ask what supports the world of brahman. At that point Yajnavalkya warns Gargi that it is dangerous to ask too many