Bhagavan: Encyclopedia - Bhagavan

Bhagavan

Bhagavan - also written Bhagawan or Bhagwan (भगवान् in devanagari script, Bhagavān in IAST) is a Sanskrit word meaning Holy or Blessed one. Historically, it has been used by many spiritual masters in India including Gautama Buddha, Ramana Maharshi and Rajneesh. A title of veneration, it is often translated as "Lord" as in "Lord Krishna" or "Lord Siva".

Bhagavan - Usage

The actual word is Bhagavat (भगवत् in Devanagari script, pronounced as "b^həgəvət"), and its nominative singular form under nominal declination is Bhagavān. It literally means "possessing fortune, fortunate" (from the root "Bhaga", meaning fortune, glory) , and hence "glorious, divine, venerable, holy", etc. It is also an epithet of some devas like Vishnu, his incarnation Krishna and Shiva. Other religions like Buddhism and Jainism also use the epithet of Bhagavan before their founders Gautama Buddha and Mahavira respectively, but it is not to be confused with the sense of "God", because they are respectively agnostic and atheistic. They use the term in the sense of "Blessed One" or "Venerable". It is also the title of the sacred scripture Gita. Many other gurus in India also use it in a similar sense. The feminine of Bhagavat is Bhagawatī and is an epithet of Durga and many other goddesses.

Bhagwan is a term used to refer to God in Hindi, the principal language of north India . The term usually means the One and the Supreme God (also called Ishvara, the Supreme Lord or Paramatman, the Supreme Spirit) in a quite monotheistic sense. Rarely, the term is also applied as an epithet to some other particular deities or devas like Ganesha, Shiva, Vishnu and Krishna, especially because the Shaivites and the Vaishnavites like to visualize God in the form of Vishnu or Shiva. The term "Hey Bhagwān" is used similarly to "Oh Jesus" or "Oh God".

Bahá'ís in India often refer to Bahá'u'lláh as "Bahá Bhagwan".

The worshippers of a Bhagavat were called Bhāgavata.

Bhagavan - Early epigraphical evidence

Bhagavan - Devotional Hinduism

The Bhāgavat religion is documented epigraphically from around 100 BCE, such as in the inscriptions of the Heliodorus pillar, in which Heliodorus, an Indo-Greek ambassador from Taxila to the court of a Sunga king, describes himself as a Bhagavata ("Heliodorena bhagavatena"):

There is a possibility that "Heliodorena bhagavatena" could only mean that Heliodorus was devoted to a personal deity, not specifically Vishnu-Krishna, possibly to the Buddha, who is also known to have been refered to as a Bhagavat.

In Hinduism, the Bhagavat religion included the Buddha (Buddhadeva) as the ninth avatar of Vishnu, instead of Balarama. The religious texts developing the Bhagavat concept are the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavata Purana.

Bhagavan - Devotional Buddhism

The word "Bhagavat" is also known to have been used to qualify the Buddha (sakamunisa bhagavato), also around the 1st century BCE, as recorded in the kharoshthi dedication of a vase placed in a Buddhist stupa by the Greek meridarch (civil governor of a province) named Theodorus (Tarn, p391):

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Bhagavan", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki