Brahman

===Brahma as a surrogate for Brahman in Buddhist texts===
The spiritual concept of Brahman is far older in the Vedic literature{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}, and some scholars suggest deity Brahma may have emerged as a personal conception and icon with form and attributes (saguna version) of the impersonal, nirguna (without attributes), formless universal principle called Brahman.<ref name=brucesullivan>Bruce Sullivan (1999), Seer of the Fifth Veda, Motilal Banarsidass, {{ISBN|978-8120816763}}, pages 82–83</ref> In the Hindu texts, one of the earliest mentions of deity Brahma along with [[Vishnu]] and [[Shiva]] is in the fifth ''Prapathaka'' (lesson) of the [[Maitrayaniya Upanishad]], probably composed in late 1st millennium BCE, after the rise of Buddhism.<ref name=hume51>{{citation|first=Robert Ernest|last=Hume|title=The Thirteen Principal Upanishads |url=https://archive.org/stream/thirteenprincipa028442mbp#page/n443/mode/2up|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1921|pages=422–424}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=K. N. Jayatilleke|title=Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zcs41sp8ON4C |year=1998|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|isbn=978-81-208-0619-1 |pages=68, 374}}, Quote: "We may conclude from the above that the rise of Buddhism is not far removed in time from, though it is prior to, the Maitri Upanishad".</ref><ref>Jan Gonda (1968), The Hindu Trinity, Anthropos, Vol. 63, pages 215–219</ref>

The early Buddhists attacked the concept of Brahma, states Gananath Obeyesekere, and thereby [[polemic]]ally attacked the Vedic and Upanishadic concept of gender neutral, abstract metaphysical Brahman.<ref name="Obeyesekere2006p179"/> This critique of Brahma in early Buddhist texts aims at ridiculing the [[Vedas]], but the same texts simultaneously call ''metta'' (loving-kindness, compassion) as the state of union with Brahma. The early Buddhist approach to Brahma was to reject any creator aspect, while retaining the value system in the Vedic [[Brahmavihara]] concepts, in the Buddhist value system.<ref name="Obeyesekere2006p179">{{cite book|author=Gananath Obeyesekere|title=Karma and Rebirth: A Cross Cultural Study|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IEK4Qgm7Z0kC |year=2006|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-2609-0 |pages=177–179 }}</ref> According to Martin Wiltshire, the term "Brahma loka" in the Buddhist canon, instead of "Svarga loka", is likely a Buddhist attempt to choose and emphasize the "truth power" and knowledge focus of the Brahman concept in the Upanishads.<ref>{{cite book|author=Martin G. Wiltshire|title=Ascetic Figures Before and in Early Buddhism: The Emergence of Gautama as the Buddha|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WXmmkYQf4RwC |year=1990|publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-009896-9 |pages=248–249, 253–255}}</ref> Simultaneously, by reformulating Brahman as Brahma and relegating it within its Devas and [[Saṃsāra (Buddhism)|Samsara]] theories, early Buddhism rejected the Atman-Brahman premise of the Vedas to present its own ''Dhamma'' doctrines ([[anicca]], [[dukkha]] and [[anatta]]).<ref>{{cite book|author=Martin G. Wiltshire|title=Ascetic Figures Before and in Early Buddhism: The Emergence of Gautama as the Buddha|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WXmmkYQf4RwC |year=1990|publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-009896-9 |pages= 256–265}}</ref>