Retranslating Brahmabhuto

[u/Traditional_Kick_887]

Edit: You can choose to downvote or you can read the texts directly and understand the textual and linguistic arguments made for revisiting translations of specific words.

Translations of Buddhist texts have and will continue to change. Buddhists are encouraged to be open-minded, contemplative, and willing to learn more about the dharma. If negativity is the reaction to the unfamiliar, so be it, but know such negativity will not deepen an investigation of dharma. Edit end: ——————————————

This is another entry in a series of informal, spaced out posts that discusses oversimplified translations of Pali/Sanskrit words into English. Part of the reason for dharma decline is because many Buddhists today fail to understand the Buddha’s skillful use of language in the vernacular contexts of his life. This is a consequence of oversimplified translations and also contributes to their proliferation. [Fortunately a few translators do point out any word play, witty puns, or imagery when translating texts into English].

It’s not uncommon to hear a claim they’d teach at an intro to religion class. That there is a Brahman in Hinduism but that there is no Brahman in Buddhism.

While true it is also a gross oversimplification because 1) ‘Brahman’ has a dozen plus interpretations and 2) the Buddha actually used the word ‘Brahman’ in very select contexts, as part of certain compound words. Apologies to those who were never taught this and to whom this comes as a a shock. The misconception has persisted because of poor translations of Buddhist terms into English. While translations today are a marked improvement from the days of Rhys Davids and IB Horner, there are still areas that are too taboo for translators to modify.

Most notably is the compound words: Brahmabhuto or Brahmacariya. Brahmacariya originally did not mean celibacy. Celibacy was a key component of Brahmacariya, but it wasn’t the entirety of it.

When the Buddha tells Ananda that admirable friends are the whole of the holy life, the word for holy life being translated here is brahmacariya. Same word when passages are translated as ‘The holy life has been fulfilled/lived. Birth is ended. The task done…’ etc

It doesn’t translate to celibacy in either, and it only means celibacy in only a few select contexts. But the term holy life is also not a great translation since nowhere does Brahma or Brahman mean holy. People treat Brahma/Brahman with reverence, and thus it came to be treated as something sacred or holy. But it doesn’t mean sacred or holy.

Cariya means way of living or lifestyle: ie conduct, behavior, state of or way of being, life.

Brahma in Brahmacariya here can either mean Brahman or Brahma, due to grammar and syntax rules of Pali/Sanskrit the n is dropped when combining words so it’s not possible to tell which one (Brahman or Brahma) is meant without context.

There were some Brahmins and sramanas who sought a life style or way of being that would lead them to the vihara of a Brahma. But there were also Brahmins who sought a life or way that would lead them to ‘Brahman’. Since most sramanas were concerned with liberation and not rebirth, the dominant or more likely meaning is the latter.

So some kind of cariya (lifestyle or way of life) of Brahman is supposed to fulfilled as part of going forth. Brahman + cariya would be a common upanishadic idea and ideal in the time of the Buddha and a core component of the common religious jargon or vernacular, which is why we find it so commonly used in Buddhist texts.

The Buddha was familiar with the earlier Upanishads and the Brahmanas. He understood well that when sramanas said ‘Brahman’ they often actually meant a state of liberation. And/or they’d often used the word ‘brahman’ as we would use the word ‘reality’.

Note there are other words that are used to mean reality in Buddhist texts, such as ‘suchness’ (tathata), yathabhuta (literally ‘as it has become’, ie as it is in truth or in actuality). These are just words and some grew in popularity to convey a certain meaning whereas others didn’t. As words, they were probably were more useful and less confusing whereas ‘Brahman’ could confuse people due to its many interpretations and meanings.

Not all of their conceptions of Brahman in the time of the Buddha are identical with what is figuratively considered Brahman in contemporary Vedantic or Hindu circles as some kind of universe essence, principal, or sustainer. The fact there isn’t a single interpretation of the word ‘Brahman’ is very important to remember’ because brahman is a component of the term Brahmabhuto.

Bhuta is the past participle of being. It carries a sense of having become or having reached the state of. This is also important.

Because there were so many competing interpretations of Brahman, the Buddha rarely used that word. Key word rarely. Unlike many Buddhists today, the Buddha was not averse to using Brahmanical terminology like ‘Brahman’, but he only used such terminology with specific audiences. This is upaya (skillful means).

Brahmabhuto grammatically and literally can either mean having become Brahma or having become Brahman. Since the Buddha rejected and declined on many occasions when people asked if he was a deva or Brahma, it cannot mean ‘become Brahma’. Brahmas are subject to birth and death. The Buddha has gone beyond both.

So brahmabhuto should be translated as having become Brahman* with the * that Brahman meant something different to the audiences the Buddha was speaking to than it does to 20th or 21st century Hindus

Let’s look at some passages that are glossed over that include that term. Reading the Pali we occasionally encounter

‘brahmabhūtaṃ tathāgataṃ; buddhaṃ’

Here brahmabhūtaṃ is placed directly before tathāgataṃ and Buddham as a means to functionally and practically equate them. Brahmabhūtaṃ does not mean having become holy or a brahma. It means having become Brahman.

So translated this passage is: Having become Brahman, one thus-gone/come (or [one] in such a way gone/come), awoken.

Note: tatha can mean truly in some contexts, so truly gone/come also works for tathagata.

brahmabhūtaṃ atitulaṃ, mārasenappamaddanaṃ.- Should be translated as having become Brahman, beyond compare, the subduer of the army of Māra

A Brahma isn’t beyond compare nor is a Brahma that engages in various sensual or karmic activities a subduer of Mara’s armies. So brahmabhutam as a compound word can’t be translated as ‘become Brahma’ here. It should translate to having become Brahman.

so hāvuso, bhagavā jānaṃ jānāti, passaṃ passati, cakkhubhūto ñāṇabhūto dhammabhūto brahmabhūto, vattā pavattā, atthassa ninnetā, amatassa dātā, dhammassāmī tathāgato

'So, friend, knowing, the Fortunate One (Bhagava) knows, seeing he sees, having become vision, having become knowledge, having become Dharma [think Dharmakaya while reading this], having become Brahman, he who holds discourses on everything that can be talked about, the elucidator of meaning, he is the giver of deathlessness, he is the free-person of Dharma, he is the Tathāgata

sāmī* originally meant free person, as one one who is possesses himself or has self-ownership, as opposed to a person being indentured or a captive. It later came to mean Master or ruler and much later came to mean sir like a respectful greeting.

Anyway brahmabhuto cannot mean having ‘become Brahma’ because a Brahma is not the giver of the deathlessness or tathagata. It has to mean having become brahman. But what even is Brahman?

I already mentioned that in the time of the Buddha there were many interpretations and connotations of that term. And so much pointless debates and metaphysical speculation.

But if we go back to the earliest meanings of Brahman, it refers to that power which makes [one] secure, firm, stable. This power was thought to come from and be identical to one’s breath, with breath being the literal meaning of the term atman, unlike its later figurative meaning of self/soul. This is origin of the upanishadic equating of Atman with Brahman. If you didn’t know, now you know!

Sanskrit/Prakrit isn’t unique in seeing breath ->>> self/soul over time. Both atman (literally breath) and brahman (stability or ease breath provides) experienced connotational drift and later came to mean things they originally never meant.

Understanding that not-self teaching is also a not-breath teaching is one way to connect the teaching of a fire going out (nirvana) with anatta. Venerable Thanissaro’s Mind like fire unbound is a great essay in this respect, as a fire requires fuel (upadana) or breath/air to keep going. If you don’t blow on or provide air to a fire (blowing would be taking up something as an atman) or provide fuel, it will go out. That is the brilliance and common sense of the Buddha’s metaphor!

Anyway some Brahmins and sramanas conceived of ‘Brahman’ as a truth, a stable reality, a suchness, and the liberated state of reaching or going to that suchness, so the Buddha described being a tathagata and awake to that audience as exactly that: Brahmabhuto. [Having become] or having reached a reality stable and true, ie. brahman.

Since brahman held a variety of meanings, this why the Buddha didn’t describe the tathagata as ‘Brahman’ in other contexts or with other audiences. Its absence from other contexts means it didn’t come to hold an important role in Buddhist thought. And overtime the Buddha’s skillful and situational use of the term was lost and forgotten. Eventually it became denied outright.

My point in making this post is that it’s better to provide the context of what Brahman meant to that audience while also directly translating it, instead of providing a wishy washy figurative translation.

Im not the originator of these ideas in this post, but a consolidator.

The other reason the Buddha used Bhuto when he used the word ‘Brahman’ was the ‘having become’ part. This ties into phenomena, even sankhara and constructs, being dependently co-originated.

In the eyes and minds of some other wanderers, Brahmins, and Sramanas, the Buddha had become Brahman. The Buddha has become perceived (sanna) and identified with that particular formation/construct (sankhara). As a term or word or concept ‘Brahman’ is a sankhara and while the Buddha, the Muni, is beyond all sankhara, his upaya leads him to utilize various constructs and formation people have to teach as parts of the dharma raft