is a leading god (deva) and heavenly king in Buddhism. He is considered as a protector of teachings (dharmapala), and he is never depicted in early Buddhist texts as a creator god. In Buddhist tradition, it was the deity Brahma Sahampati who appeared before the Buddha and invited him to teach, once the Buddha attained enlightenment. Brahma and lords over the heavenly realm of rebirth called the Brahmaloka, one of the highest realms in Buddhist cosmology. Brahma is generally represented in Buddhist culture as a god with four faces and four arms, and variants of him are found in Mahayana Buddhist cultures. Origins and nomenclature The origins of Brahma in Buddhism and other Indian religions are uncertain, in part because several related words such as one for metaphysical Ultimate Reality (Brahman), and priest (Brahmin) are found in the Vedic literature. According to KN Jayatilleke, the Rigveda expresses skepticism about major deities such as Indra; whether he even exists, as well as whether the universe has any creator and whether this can ever be known, as evidenced in its eighth and tenth book, particularly in its Nasadiya Sukta. The late Vedic hymns had begun inquiring the nature of true and valid knowledge, empirical verification and absolute reality. The early Upanishads built upon this theme, while in parallel there emerged Buddhism, Jainism and other skeptical traditions. 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. In Hindu literature, one of the earliest mention of deity Brahma with Vishnu and Shiva is in the fifth Prapathaka (lesson) of the Maitrayaniya Upanishad, probably composed in late 1st millennium BCE, after the rise of Buddhism. The spiritual concept of Brahman is far older, and some scholars suggest deity Brahma may have emerged as a personal conception and icon with attributes (saguna version) of the impersonal universal principle called Brahman. The Buddhists attacked the concept of Brahma, states Gananath Obeyesekere, and thereby polemically attacked the Vedic and Upanishadic concept of gender neutral, abstract metaphysical Brahman. This critique of Brahma in early Buddhist texts aim at ridiculing the Vedas, but the same texts simultaneously call metta (loving-kindness, compassion) as the state of union with Brahma. The early Buddhist approach to Brahma was to reject any creator aspect, while retaining the Brahmavihara aspects of Brahma, in the Buddhist value system.