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Bhagavan is a term used in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism to represent a personal Supreme Being with distinctive desires and characteristics. It is also used as a title for many figures in these religions, including deities and gurus. The term Svayam Bhagavan is used to differentiate the deity from other gods who might bear the title of Lord.
Bhagavan is a fairly complex term used in Hinduism and, by extension, used in both Buddhism and Jainism. In its most basic form, Bhagavan can be understood as representing a personal Supreme Being. Bhagavan is perhaps the manifestation of the divine in Hinduism that is closest to the Judeo-Christian understanding of a God.
While Brahman can also be thought of as representing a Supreme Being, it is generally used as a term to denote a more spiritual and abstract understanding of that being. Bhagavan, on the contrary, is given a personality, with distinctive desires and characteristics. One way to think of the distinction between Brahman and Bhagavan would be to compare it to certain Christian views of God the Holy Spirit and God the Father, with the former associated more with a general life force and the latter with a personality as Creator.
Bhagavan is also used as a title for many figures in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. In this context he can be understood simply as Lord, comparing the figure thus named to the deity of Bhagavan himself. Female figures or goddesses may bear the same title in the female form, Bhagawati.
The title appears in Buddhism as a descriptor of the Buddha up to the earliest Pali Buddhist documents. This is most often translated simply as Lord Buddha or Lord Shakyamuni, where the original would be something like sakamunisa bhagavato. In Hinduism some of the major gods are given the title of Bhagavan, such as Bhagavan Shiva, Bhagavan Swaminarayan, Bhagavan Krishna and Bhagawati Durga. In many English texts these would appear simply as Lord Krishna or similar.
In Hinduism the term Svayam Bhagavan can be used to differentiate the deity from other gods who might bear the title of Lord. This can be roughly translated as The Lord Himself, and may refer to Krishna in sects of Hinduism where Krishna is seen as the source of all deities, or to Vishnu or Narayana in sects where one of these figures is seen as the ultimate source of the gods. In some sects, Svayam Bhagavan may also refer to a certain manifestation of Krishna, who may be understood as the god from whom all the gods of our world spring, but who is subordinate to the triumvirate power of Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva, which to them they are sometimes subordinate to the form of Krishna as the supreme deity, or Svayam Rupa.
In the modern world, it is not uncommon to hear Bhagavan applied as a title to gurus and babas, as well as deities. This comes from the idea that God permeates all things of this world and serves as a mark of respect for the ultimate teachers, acknowledging how visible the Divinity has become in them. There are two recent and famous gurus who have borne this title. One is Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho, a religious leader who died in 1990 and who practiced an overtly sexual form of Hinduism, propagating a movement known as neo-sannyas. The other is Bhagavan Das, a California yogi best known for helping guide Ram Dass to a guru in his first spiritual awakening.
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