[1][2] He is considered as a protector of teachings (dharmapala),[3] and he is never depicted in early Buddhist texts as a creator god.

[8][9] The late Vedic hymns had begun inquiring about the nature of valid knowledge, empirical verification, and absolute reality.

Buddhism used the term Brahma to deny a creator, as well as to delegate him (and other deities, such as Indra) as less important than the Buddha.

[11][12][13] Early Hindu literature mentions Brahma with Vishnu and Shiva in the fifth Prapathaka ("lesson") of the Maitrayaniya Upanishad, which was probably composed in late 1st millennium BCE after the rise of Buddhism.

[2] In Thailand, Brahma or Phra Phrom is typically seen as the Buddhist god of order, government, law, students, the police, education, and the physical world.

[25] He also has a role of both making the universe from chaotic, primordial matter and states of existence, and afterwards continually maintaining it by mitigating the depredations of these forces, with his efforts both being helped and hindered by the order and chaos of humanity and its civilizations.

[25] Although, in modern and historic Thai religious writings, depictions that resemble the Hindu Brahma much more existed.

[27] Brahmā Sahāmpati, said to be the most senior of the Mahābrahmās, was the deity who visited the Buddha when he attained enlightenment, and advised him to teach the Dharma to humans.

[28] The singular leading deity and the king of heavens Brahmā is sometimes referred in Buddhist texts as Mahābrahmā.

[29][23] However, the Suttas are inconsistent in this regard and several early Buddhist texts depict Sakra (Pāli: Sakka) – who is same as the Hindu Vedic god Indra – as more important than Mahabrahma.

[30] The Mahābrahmā, or the Great Brahma, states Peter Harvey, is mentioned in Digha Nikaya as the being who dwells in the upper heaven; a Buddhist student can join him for one kalpa (eon, Brahma-year in Indian religions) after successfully entering the first jhana in the form realm of Buddhist practice.

During the time when our great Bodhisattva was performing difficult tasks, Alara Kalama and Uddakaraputta, who were teachers, were born in these worlds after giving birth to Dhyana, so they did not get nirvana in this Buddha seat.

1. brahma pārisadya 2. brahma purōhitaya 3. mahā brahmaya 4. parittābhaya 5. appamānābhaya 6. ābhassaraya 7. parittasubhaya 8. appamāna subhaya 9. subhakiṇhaka 10. vehapphalaya 11. asaṁgna talaya 12. avīhaya 13. atappaya 14. sudassaya 15. sudassiya 16. akaniṣṭaya 17. ākāsañacāyatanaya 18. viññāṁcāyatanaya 19. ākiṁcaṁñāyatanaya 20. nēvasaññānāsaññāyatanaya In the sense of "a being of the Rūpadhātu", the term Brahmā may be related to Brahmavihāra, a term referring to the meditative states achieved through the four Rūpajhānas, which are shared by the inhabitants of the Rūpadhātu.

Prior to the advent of the Buddha, according to Martin Wiltshire, the pre-Buddhist traditions of Brahma-loka, meditation and these four virtues are evidenced in both early Buddhist and non-Buddhist literature.

[33] The early Buddhist texts assert that pre-Buddha ancient Indian sages who taught these virtues were earlier incarnations of the Buddha.

[35] The Buddha never claimed that the "four immeasurables" were his unique ideas, in a manner similar to "cessation, quieting, nirvana".

[47][48] Brahman in the texts of Advaita Vedanta and many other Hindu schools, states Nakamura, is a concrete universal, manifesting itself as phenomenal reality which is not illusory and nondual.

[50] The Pāli scriptures present a "pernicious view" that is set up as an absolute principle corresponding to Brahman: "O Bhikkhus!

"[51] The Buddha confined himself to both ordinary empirical sense experience and extrasensory perception enabled by high degrees of mental concentration.