‘भगवान’ AND ‘ईश्वर’

Most of the wrong beliefs have crept in our society because of non-understanding the difference between Bhagwaan and Ishwar. Both of these words are used as synonyms meaning God. Here, we try to understand the difference between these two terms. Both these terms are from Sanskrit language. The term Bhagwaan comes out of the root ‘भग’. This root has six meanings. Anything which possesses any one of these qualities can be termed as ‘Bhagwaan’, that is, possessor of the qualities meant by the root भग. But ‘Ishwar possesses all these six qualities. A person can have aishwarya (one meaning of ‘भग’) to a limited extent only but God only has complete aishwarya. As such, we can say that ‘Bhagwaan’ is not ‘Ishwar’ but ‘Ishwar’ is ‘Bhagwaan’.

There are five acts which God does and there is unanimity regarding this in all sects. These are-Creation of universe, sustenance of universe, dissolution of universe, bestowing of knowledge and giving fruits of acts of souls. None of the persons named as ‘bhagwaan’ does any of these acts. Then, how could the term ‘bhagwan’ mean God? In Sanskrit doer of these acts is termed as ‘Ishwar’. Further, God is concurred to be an entity, which is free from all sorts of miseries but all the persons named as ‘bhagwaan’ in respective sects are sufferers of miseries. Popular personalities, who are called ‘Bhagwaan’ by their followers are ‘Ram’, ‘Krishan’ and ‘Shiv’. There is a story that after kidnapping of Shri Ram’s wife, he became very miserable and said that this plight must had been the result of the sins committed by him in his previous lives. This saying clearly shows that he had taken birth many times in the past and kidnapping of his wife distressed him. In the Bhagwad Gitaa, Krishan says at one place that he knows his earlier births whereas Arjun does not know about his previous lives. Further, on knowing about the finishing of his kul-Yadvas, he became very mournful and went into solitude in a jungle. All these establish that Shri Krishan was an ordinary human being prone to misery. There is a reference of the plight of Shri Shiv in the Shiv-puraan after the death of his wife ‘Sati’. All this advocate to an open mind that these personalities could be called as Bhagwaan because of the qualities they possessed but they were not God.

In modern times, a sacred soul named Maharishi Dayanand explained the difference between these two terms. By doing so, he showered his great kindness on human kind. If, we can understand the difference between these two terms, we can be away from the clutches of wrong beliefs. Maharishi Swami Dayanand emphasized the importance of intellect in understanding and knowing about any subject. If we use this great tool named ‘intellect’ in reaching out the truth of anything, we can free ourselves from the wrong beliefs.

-Thoughts of Virender Shastri