Words involving the Stem Brahman- Denoting the achievement of Super-Human status in Vedic and Suttapiṭaka sources

Although there are many heroic features that could be analyzed in Indian literature, we have decided to concentrate on the so-called apotheosis of the hero, i.e. on his somehow “becoming a god”. We suppose that this idea of achieving the special almost divine status which guarantees that a person is proclaimed as a brahmán, i.e. that “he becomes bráhman/ he is a brahmabhūta” or, in other words, the extolled scope of attaining bráhman (neuter noun) might have been a common archetypal Indo-Āryan heroic pattern for both the relevant Vedic and Buddhist texts. It may have been re-elaborated at length throughout the historical-religious Indian culture, often re-emerging at a distance of time, possibly because it had never been entirely submerged. As a consequence, in order to make this allegedly ancient background resurface, by using comparative methodology, on the one hand, we shall survey the Sutta-Piṭaka occurrences of brahma-bhūta, which include some formulas literally depicting hero-figures, such as the Buddha winner against the army of Māra (e.g. M II 146 = Sn 110 =Th 79) and the usage of the mentioned compound as an epithet referred to both the Buddha and the Dhamma (e.g. M I 110 = M III 224), etc. On the other hand, we shall go deeper into the linguistic and speculative consonance between the ancient ritual competitive Vedic pattern of gaining pre-eminence (AB 7.19-21; JB 1.222; 2.55) and gradual wisdom paths to salvation, whose achievement is depicted as a royal consecration (TS 1.8.15-16; KU 1.4; BhG 5.24).