page_title: Brahmā (Buddhism)
section_title: Brahmā Sahampati
hierarchical_section_title: Brahmā (Buddhism) / Classification / Brahmā Sahampati
caption_attribution_description: English: Gold covered giant She Mien Fo Statue at Sanggar Agung Temple in 2013, Surabaya, Indonesia
context_page_description: Brahmā is a leading god and heavenly king in Buddhism. He was adopted from other Indian religions such as Hinduism that considered him a protector of teachings, and he is never depicted in early Buddhist texts as a creator god. In Buddhist tradition, it was the deity Brahma Sahampati who appeared before the Buddha and urged him to teach, once the Buddha attained enlightenment but was unsure if he should teach his insights to anyone.
  Brahma is a part of the Buddhist cosmology, and lords over the heavenly realm of rebirth called the Brahmaloka, one of the highest realms in the Buddhist afterlife. Brahma is generally represented in Buddhist culture as a god with four faces and four arms, and variants of him are found in both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist cultures.
context_section_description: Brahmā Sahāmpati, said to be the most senior of the Mahābrahmās, was the deity who visited the Buddha when he attained enlightenment, and encouraged him to teach the Dharma to humans.
caption: Gold covered Phra Phrom statue at Sanggar Agung, Surabaya, Indonesia. He is known as Brahmā Sahāmpati in the Thai tradition.
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