Deva (Buddhism)

A deva (देव <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit" title="Sanskrit" >Sanskrit</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81li" title="Pāli" class="mw-redirect" >Pāli</a>) in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism" title="Buddhism" >Buddhism</a> is one of many different types of non-human beings who share the characteristics of being more powerful, longer-lived, and, in general, living more contentedly than the average human being.

Synonyms in other languages include <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_language" title="Khmer language" >Khmer</a> tep (ទេព), or preah (ព្រះ), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_language" title="Myanmar language" class="mw-redirect" >Myanmar language</a> nat, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_language" title="Tibetan language" class="mw-redirect" >Tibetan</a> lha, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_language" title="Mongolian language" >Mongolian</a> tenger (тэнгэр), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language" title="Chinese language" >Chinese</a> tiān (天), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_language" title="Korean language" >Korean</a> cheon, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language" title="Japanese language" >Japanese</a> ten, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_language" title="Vietnamese language" >Vietnamese</a> thiên. The concept of devas was adopted in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan" title="Japan" >Japan</a> partly because of the similarity to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto" title="Shinto" >Shinto</a>'s concept of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kami" title="Kami" >kami</a>.

Other words used in Buddhist texts to refer to similar supernatural beings are devatā "deity" and devaputra (Pāli: devaputta) "son of the gods". It is unclear what the distinction between these terms is.

Deva (Buddhism)

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