[Buddha-l] 'Sons of Brahma, sons of Buddha?'

[jkirk]

Hey thanks--it's now clear, finally! I had got used to hearing what I
thought meant "god" referred to as "bhagwaan" in everyday conversation in
India, as in "bhagwaan kere"--if god is willing, a sort of riposte to the
Muslim insha'allah-- so was confused by that. Was under impression also that
that Hindi expression had been invented fairly recently, and was rarely
uttered by Hindus. But could be wrong about that, too.
Joanna
==================
> As far as I understand this, 'buddha' is only one among many epithets that
> the guy, Gautama, collected after his realization.  Bhagavant or bhagavan,
> Jina, Sugata, Tathagata, etc. are others.  It may well be a simply
accident
> of history that the epithet 'buddha' stuck with Gautama, and epithet
'jina'
> stuck with Mahavira, otherwise Buddhists (or bauddhas) might have been
> Jainas, and Jainas might have been Buddhists (or bauddhas)!  And, yes,
> 'bhagwan' is just the modern 'version' of bhagavant/bhagavan, which in the
> Buddhist sense has no god-like connotations, but, as an epithet means
> 'Fortunate One', 'Happy One' , or 'Illustrious One', etc., sometimes
> translated as the 'Lord'.  The 'god' bit comes with the Bhagavad-gita, I
> think, and of course we've had Bhagvan Shree Rashneesh!
>
> Robert Morrison
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