Abraham Is Brahma: Mere Etymological Word-Play Or Something Deeper?
By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
20 June 2023
"Once you
start digging out the fundamental similarities, be that in religion or
something else, one common source emerges, much to the embarrassment of all. You
also realize to your discomfiture that all your (modern) religions and their
gods are actually mankind's throwbacks to its prehistoric past. "
Ernest Klein (1899-1983), Hungarian-born
Romanian-Canadian linguist
Lord Brahma
----
Recently, some Jewish scholars at Tel Aviv
University opined that the 'prophet' Abraham was nothing but Semitic distortion
of Brahma (Adi Purush or the Creator of the universe in Hindu mythology). This
is not new. Many scholars of religion and linguists like Edmund Sapir, Umberto
Eco, Grearson, Kshitimohan Sen, Rahul Sankrityayan, Noah Webster, James Murray,
Marko Snoj et al thought and doubted long ago that the creator of the three
Semitic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam (also called Abrahamic faiths)
must have been a linguistic variant of Brahma. Don't get me wrong. I'm not
advocating Hinduism. I'm NOT a Hindu. I don't follow any man-made faith. Nor do
I believe in any damn god. I'm just a dispassionate chronicler of unvarnished
truths and facts. Regarding the link between Abraham and Brahma, Steven Rosen
writes:
The similarities between the names of
Abraham and Brahma have not gone unnoticed. Abraham is said to be the father of
the Jews, and Brahma, as the first created being, is often seen as the father
of mankind. Abraham’s name is derived from the two Semitic words ab meaning
‘father’ and Raam/Raham meaning ‘of the exalted….’ We might also note
that the name of Brahma’s consort Saraswati seems to resonate with that of
Abraham’s wife, Sarah [… each one’s identity as a wife and/or sister]. Also, in
India, the Saraswati River includes a tributary known as the Ghaggar….
According to Jewish tradition, Hagar was Sarah’s maidservant…. Both Brahmins …
and Jews see themselves as the ‘chosen people of God.’ The Hebrews began their
sojourn through history as a ‘kingdom of priests’ (Exodus 19:6). Likewise,
Brahmins are also a community of priests. But in fact, Abraham and Brahma are
mythical figures. Both never existed. Just because, Vedic Hinduism is much
older than pristine Judaism, it stands to reason that evolving communities in
that part of the world looked towards the East and its Sanatan Dharm. Those
primitive communities also needed to concoct the concept of a creator and they
had Brahma as a point of reference. …Flavius Josephus … (in the) Antiquities of
the Jews … quotes Aristotle (384 b.c.e.–322 b.c.e.) as saying that Jews are
derived from the Indian philosophers and are known as the Calani. Clearchus of
Soli was a student in Aristotle’s school. In his book, De Somno, he elaborates
on the story of how Aristotle discovered this information, but the basic
concept remained the same.
Megasthenes was a traveller who became an
ambassador of Seleucus I of Syria to the court of Chandragupta Maurya, the
first unifier of India, before the latter’s death in 288 b.c.e. According to
Godfrey Higgins, in the first volume of his massive Anacalypsis, Megasthenes
wrote that the Jews were an Indian tribe or sect called Kalani. Except for the
spelling he agreed with Aristotle and Clearchus. From the perspective of
phonetics, the name 'Abraham' is pronounced in classical Hebrew as 'Au-Braham'.
Since Hebrew originated from Ladino and Yiddish, many vowel and consonant
patterns along with prefix and suffix were retained in Hebrew, which still has
a flawed and unclear alphabet. The prefix 'Au' in Hebrew, Ladino and Yiddish is
almost silent and it sounds like 'Braham'. Because of this phonetical and
connotational fluidity, Abraham became 'Ibrahim' in Islam, Gabriel became
'Jibreel' and Solomon became 'Salman.' It's worthwhile to state that all these
fictitious characters are found in all the three Semitic faiths. Mankind is so
deeply immersed in the cesspool of religious bullshit that we knowingly ignore
the truth because it's too disconcerting and we don't want to come out of our
comfort zone of religious stupor. We never bother to know that the word 'Girja'
(Hindi for Church) was coined by the cunning Portuguese Catholic missionaries
who wanted to Christianise the fishing community of Goa and Konkan. Those
missionaries knew that the rustic and uneducated fishermen could be converted
if they were slowly brainwashed with their own symbols. ‘Girija’ is 'mother
earth' (it's also an obscure synonym of Durga). Mother Mary was installed in
the churches of Goa by the Roman Catholics and the ignorant people were
exhorted to worship their 'mother earth' (Girija). Alas, those yokels could
never realise how imperceptibly they became Christians. And this is how a
religion is disseminated by its priests and proponents. Yet, we all will
continue to inhale the miasma of this pigshit till human civilization comes to
an end.
----
A regular columnist for New Age Islam,
Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to
Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in
several languages including Persian.
URL:
https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/abraham-brahma-etymological/d/130031
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic
Website, African
Muslim News, Arab World
News, South Asia
News, Indian
Muslim News, World Muslim
News, Women in
Islam, Islamic
Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism