The History of Buddhist Thought c14.24

c14.24

The second class of doctrines deals with the nature of the gods, and while not denying their existence sets out a theory which unceremoniously deprives the conception of deity of any value. The great Brahmā himself is reborn like any other being. He is the first to be born at the beginning of a new age, and imagines himself to be god (issara), as indeed he is for the time being. Other beings are born later, and he imagines that they have come into being at his wish, because he wished for them. And the other beings who meditate about it imagine that he is their maker, and that they themselves are impermanent and short-lived.