Sanskritbhaga is a term for "lord, patron", but also for "wealth, prosperity". The cognate term in Avestan and Old Persian is baga, of uncertain meaning but used in a sense in which "lord, patron" might also apply. A Slavic cognate is bog "god". While the word "bog" denoted nearly all Slavic gods, the word Deva in its cognate Div was used only for the creator god - Rod, the Slavic equivalent of Brahma. The semantics is similar to English lord (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 shares its origins with the Middle Persian baga (baga-data: "god given", modern Persian: "Baghdad") The root meaning of bhaga is vulva, hence it came to mean fecund or prosperous and eventually acquired it's honorific sense. [1]
Personified, Bhaga is one of the Adityas, a god of wealth and marriage in Hinduism. Virabhadra, a great powerful hero created by Shiva, once blinded him. In the Rigveda 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 & destiny respectively.
References[]
↑Red Pine, The Diamond Sutra, p. 41. Note: page number refers to ePub accessed on an iPad in portrait view. May differ from other electronic and print editions. The reference is from the first chapter of the commentary section.
