Creation. The doctrine that the universe is created stands in opposition to various alternatives, e.g., emanationism, pantheism, and dualism. On an emanationist view, the universe eternally emanates from God as sunshine emanates from the sun and vapor emanates from boiling water. Pantheistic views vary in detail, but in principle they understand by "God" a universal principle running through everything, so that everything can be property said to be in some sense identified with God; i.e., God is the nature of things, so that persons differ from things only in the sense and to the extent that they are aware (or more aware) of their divine nature. Dualism takes two distinct forms: (1) that good and evil are the product of two separate causes, both ultimately and equally real; and (2) that mind and matter are opposed, distinct, equally real, and not necessarily interrelated. The doctrine of creation is not at all, however, opposed to or incompatible with an evolutionary understanding of the universe. On the contrary, by recognizing as it does the Otherness (i.e., the Transcendence of God) and at the same time his Immanence in all things, it sees God as Necessary Being and all other entities as contingent and dependent on him. As soon as they become aware of their relationship to him and their participation in his goodness, it is natural for them to adore and praise him as the source of their own being and of all that is.

Creation, Buddhist doctrine of. The notion of a personal God, creator of all things, does not exist in Buddhism. Indeed, the Hindu concept of creation by Brahma seemed to the Buddhists to be tainted with the notion of achievement and that therefore, from a Buddhist standpoint, Brahma as a creator deity is inferior to the Buddha who attains enlightenment with no sense of achievement. Generally speaking, Buddhist thinkers are agnostic on the question of how the universe came or comes into being, regarding it as unanswerable, not to say futile. Nevertheless, the Buddha is reported to have declared that the samsāra or chain of being is such that no beginning is discoverable. As elsewhere in the comparison of Hindu and Buddhist attitudes, while Hinduism has from an early period exhibited great interest in ontological questions, which relate to the nature of Being, Buddhism is metaphysically agnostic, functioning rather as a way of salvation. It exhibits itself as a psychological rather than as a theological concern: a therapy for the human psyche rather than an ontology or philosophical theology. This does not by any means exclude, however, its having its own metaphysical presuppositions, which it takes as its startingpoint. It does exclude its taking any interest in questions such as creation, which are so fundamental in Judaism and Christianity and which have played an important part in Hindu thought.

Geddes MacGregor, Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy, New York: Paragon House, 1989

creation : (nt.) māpana; nimmaṇā.

A.P. Buddhadatta Mahathera, Concise Pali-English and English-Pali Dictionary [available as digital version from Metta Net, Sri Lanka]