Bhagavan - also written Bhagawan or Bhagwan (भगवान् in devanagari script, Bhagavān in IAST) is a Sanskrit word meaning Holy or Blessed one. Historically, it has been used by many spiritual masters in India including Gautama Buddha. More recent and contemporary teachers with the title include Ramana Maharshi, Rajneesh, and Bhagavan Nityananda. A title of veneration, it is often translated as "Lord" as in "Lord Krishna" or "Lord Siva".

Usage

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The actual word is Bhagavat (भगवत् in Devanagari script, pronounced as "b^həgəvət"), and its nominative singular form under nominal declination is Bhagavān. It literally means "possessing fortune, fortunate" (from the root "Bhaga", meaning fortune, glory) , and hence "glorious, divine, venerable, holy", etc. It is also an epithet of some devas like Vishnu, his incarnation Krishna and Shiva. Other religions like Buddhism and Jainism also use the epithet of Bhagavan before their founders Gautama Buddha and Mahavira respectively, but it is not to be confused with the sense of "God", because they are respectively agnostic and atheistic. They use the term in the sense of "Blessed One" or "Venerable". It is also the title of the sacred scripture Gita. Many other gurus in India also use it in a similar sense. The feminine of Bhagavat is Bhagawatī and is an epithet of Durga and many other goddesses.

Bhagwan is a term used to refer to God in Hindi, the principal language of north India . The term usually means the One and the Supreme God (also called Ishvara, the Supreme Lord or Paramatman, the Supreme Spirit) in a monotheistic sense. Rarely, the term is also applied as an epithet to some other particular deities or devas like Ganesha, Shiva, Vishnu and Krishna, especially because the Shaivites and the Vaishnavites like to visualize God in the form of Vishnu or Shiva. The term "Hey Bhagwān" is used similarly to "Oh Jesus" or "Oh God".

Bahá'ís in India often refer to Bahá'u'lláh as "Bahá Bhagwan".

The worshippers of a Bhagavat were called Bhāgavata.

Early epigraphical evidence

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Devotional Hinduism

The Bhāgavat religion is documented epigraphically from around 100 BCE, such as in the inscriptions of the Heliodorus pillar, in which Heliodorus, an Indo-Greek ambassador from Taxila to the court of a Sunga king, describes himself as a Bhagavata ("Heliodorena bhagavatena"):

''"Devadevasa Va ^*vasa Garudadhvajo ayam

''karito i^* Heliodorena bhaga-

''vatena Diyasa putrena Takhasilakena

''Yonadatena agatena maharajasa

''Amtalikitasa upa^*ta samkasam-rano

''Kasiput[Bhagabhadrasa tratarasa

vasena ^*dasena rajena vadhamanasa"

"This Garuda-standard of Vasudeva (Vishnu), the God of Gods

was erected here by the Bhagavata Heliodoros,

the son of Dion, a man of Taxila,

sent by the Great Greek (Yona) King

Antialcidas, as ambassador to

King Kasiputra Bhagabhadra, the Savior

son of the princess from Benares, in the fourteenth year of his reign."

(Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report (1908-1909))

There is a possibility that "Heliodorena bhagavatena" could only mean that Heliodorus was devoted to a personal deity, not specifically Vishnu-Krishna, possibly to the Buddha, who is also known to have been referred to as a Bhagavat.

In Hinduism, the Bhagavat religion later in history included the Buddha (Buddhadeva) as the ninth avatar of Vishnu, instead of Balarama. The religious texts developing the Bhagavat concept are the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavata Purana.

Devotional Buddhism

The word "Bhagavat" is also known to have been used to qualify the Buddha (sakamunisa bhagavato), also around the 1st century BCE, as recorded in the kharoshthi dedication of a vase placed in a Buddhist stupa by the Greek meridarch (civil governor of a province) named Theodorus (Tarn, p391):

"Theudorena meridarkhena pratithavida ime sarira sakamunisa bhagavato bahu-jana-stitiye":

"The meridarch Theodorus has enshrined relics of Lord Shakyamuni, for the welfare of the mass of the people"

(Swāt relic vase inscription of the Meridarkh Theodoros ^*)

References

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• "The Shape of Ancient Thought. Comparative studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies" by Thomas McEvilley (Allworth Press and the School of Visual Arts, 2002) ISBN 1581152035
• "Buddhism in Central Asia" by B.N. Puri (Motilal Banarsidass Pub, January 1, 2000) ISBN 8120803728
• "The Greeks in Bactria and India", W.W. Tarn, Cambridge University Press.

Bhagvan