The History of Buddhist Thought c15.37

c15.37

The idea of Brahma (neuter) in the old upanishads is said to have become hypostatized in Buddhism into a personal god Brahmā. But this rather implies that the older philosophic idea had been known to the Buddhists and then had become transformed into a much less philosophic conception. We have no evidence that early Buddhism ever knew it. It moves on the lines of the popular polytheism, which had never known the secret lore of the sages.