Bhaga
Encyclopedia
Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

  is a term for "lord, patron", but also for "wealth, prosperity". The cognate term in Avestan and Old Persian is , of uncertain meaning but used in a sense in which "lord, patron" might also apply. A Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

 cognate is "god". While the word "bog" denoted nearly all Slavic gods, the word Deva in its cognate Div
Div
Div or DIV may refer to:* Division ** <div>, an HTML tag that implements a generic block-level element** division, the mathematical operation that is the inverse of multiplication...

 was used only for the creator god - Rod
Rod (god)
Rod is a Slavic deity, often mentioned in the Old Church Slavonic didactic literature which was directed against pagans...

, the Slavic equivalent of Brahma
Brahma
Brahma is the Hindu god of creation and one of the Trimurti, the others being Vishnu and Shiva. According to the Brahma Purana, he is the father of Mānu, and from Mānu all human beings are descended. In the Ramayana and the...

. The semantics is similar to English lord
Lord
Lord is a title with various meanings. It can denote a prince or a feudal superior . The title today is mostly used in connection with the peerage of the United Kingdom or its predecessor countries, although some users of the title do not themselves hold peerages, and use it 'by courtesy'...

(from hlaford "bread warden"), the idea being that it is part of the function of a chieftain or leader to distribute riches or spoils among his followers. The name Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

 shares its origins with the Middle Persian baga (baga-data: "god given", modern Persian: "Baghdad") The root meaning of bhaga is vulva
Vulva
The vulva consists of the external genital organs of the female mammal. This article deals with the vulva of the human being, although the structures are similar for other mammals....

, hence it came to mean fecund or prosperous and eventually acquired it's honorific sense.

Personified, is one of the Adityas, a god of wealth
Wealth
Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word wealth is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...

 and marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

 in Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

. Virabhadra
Virabhadra
According to Hindu mythology, Virabhadra or Veerabhadra was a super being created by the wrath of Rudra , when he stepped in to destroy the Yagna of Daksha, after his daughter Dakshayani - consort of Shiva, self-immolated in yagna fire...

, a great powerful hero created by Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...

, once blinded him. In the Rigveda
Rigveda
The Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...

 Bhaga is the god who supervises the distribution of goods and destiny to each man corresponding to his merits. The word apparently, is cognative to "Bhagavan" and "Bhagya", terms used in several Indian languages to refer to God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

 & destiny
Destiny
Destiny or fate refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual...

respectively.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK