From
Access To Insight (note that it's talking about Devas in the realm of Brahma, not Brahmins the Hindu priestly caste):
Maha Brahma
The stories of a Buddha going to teach a brahma take place on the plane of Maha Brahma, the third of the fine-material planes (No. 14). Many people worship Maha Brahma as the supreme and eternal creator God, but for the Buddha he is merely a powerful deity still caught within the cycle of repeated existence. In point of fact, "Maha Brahma" is a role or office filled by different individuals at different periods.
The Buddha has directly seen the origins of Maha Brahma and understands what it requires to be reborn in his world. In the Brahmajala Sutta (DN 1) the Buddha describes how a supposed Creator God came to believe himself omnipotent and how others came to rely on his sovereignty. His description was based, not on speculation or hearsay, but on his own direct knowledge. The Buddha explains that when our world system disintegrates, as it regularly does after extremely long periods of time, the lower sixteen planes are all destroyed. Beings disappear from all planes below the seventeenth, the plane of the Abhassara gods. Whatever beings cannot be born on the seventeenth or a higher brahma plane then must take birth on the lower planes in other remote world systems.
Eventually the world starts to re-form. Then a solitary being passes away from the Abhassara plane and takes rebirth on the plane of Maha Brahma. A palace created by his kamma awaits him there: "There he dwells, mind-made, feeding on rapture, self-luminous, moving through the air, abiding in glory. And he continues thus for a long, long time." After ages pass, he becomes lonely and longs for other beings to join him. It just so happens that shortly after the brahma starts craving for company, other beings from the Abhassara plane, who have exhausted their lifespans there, pass away and are reborn in the palace of Brahma, in companionship with him.
Because these beings seemed to arise in accordance with the first brahma's wish, he becomes convinced that he is the almighty God: "I am the Great Brahma, the Vanquisher... the Lord, the Maker and Creator, the Supreme Being." The other brahmas, seeing that he was already present when they took birth in his world, accept his claim and revere him as their creator.
Eventually this misconception of a Creator God spreads to the human plane. One of the other brahmas passes away and is reborn here. He develops concentration and learns to recollect his previous life with Maha Brahma, but none of his lives before that. Recollecting that existence he recalls that Maha Brahma was considered the "father of all that are and are to be... permanent, stable, eternal." As he is unable to remember further back, he believes this to be absolute truth and propounds a theistic doctrine of an omnipotent Creator God (Net 69-70, 155-66).
The Venerable Ledi Sayadaw, a highly renowned Myanmar scholar-monk of the first part of this century, gave a careful analysis of the powers of Maha Brahma in his
Niyama Dipani (MB pp. 138-39). He states that although Maha Brahma can perform all sorts of transformations, he cannot actually create independent creatures, change the kammic law of cause and effect, or keep anyone from growing old or dying. Brahma can use his special powers to transport a man to the brahma plane for a short visit, but he cannot ensure that someone will be reborn there.
Baka Brahma
A brahma known as Baka once reflected privately that he and his plane of existence were everlasting. He thought that there could be no higher plane of rebirth and was convinced he had overcome suffering. The Buddha discerned his deep-seated wrong view and decided to pay him a visit. When he appeared in that brahma world, Baka Brahma welcomed him formally but immediately announced:
"Now, good sir, this is permanent, this is everlasting, this is eternal, this is total, this is not subject to pass away; for this neither is born nor ages nor dies nor passes away nor reappears, and beyond this there is no escape." (MN 49)
The Buddha, however, contradicted him, pointing out that every one of his claims was wrong. Just then Mara the Evil One joined the conversation. Mara's task is to prevent beings from being won over to the Dhamma, to keep them trapped in the cycle of birth and death, his own personal domain.
Taking possession of one of the brahma's attendants, Mara urged the Buddha, with a display of sympathy, to accept this brahma as God, the creator of all beings. He told the Buddha that recluses of the past who delighted in things of this life and "who lauded Brahma" won happy births afterwards, while those who rejected Brahma had to endure terrible punishment. The Exalted One let him have his say and then called his number:
"I know you, Evil One. Do not think: 'He does not know me.' You are Mara, Evil One, and the Brahma and his assembly and the members of the assembly have all fallen into your hands, they have all fallen into your power. You, Evil One, think: 'This one too has fallen into my hands, he too has fallen into my power'; but I have not fallen into your hands, Evil One, I have not fallen into your power."
All beings subject to craving — humans, subhumans, devas, or brahmas — are said to be in Mara's power because they can all be moved by defilements and must drift along in the current of birth and death. But the Buddha and the arahants have permanently and completely escaped Mara's ken and power, for they have eliminated all defilements. They have exhausted the fuel of rebirth and thus have vanquished the Lord of Death.
Baka Brahma next speaks up on his own behalf. He reminds the Buddha of his opening statement on permanence. He warns him that it is futile to seek "an escape beyond" his own realm, then he cajoles and threatens him in the same breath: "If you will hold to earth... beings... gods... you will be close to me, within my domain, for me to work my will upon and punish." The Buddha agrees that if he clung to earth (or any other aspect of existence) he would remain under the control of Maha Brahma (and Mara too), but he adds: "I understand your reach and your sway to extend thus: Baka the Brahma has this much power, this much might, this much influence." The Buddha points out that beyond the thousandfold world system over which Baka reigns there are planes of existence of which he is totally unaware, and beyond all conditioned phenomena there is a reality that transcends even "the allness of the all" — a consciousness without manifestation, boundless, luminous on all sides — to which Baka has no access. Demonstrating his superiority in knowledge and power, the Buddha uses his psychic powers to humble Baka and his entire assembly. By the end of the discourse, these once haughty beings marvel at the might of the recluse Gotama: "Though living in a generation that delights in being... he has extirpated being together with its root."
en.m.wikipedia.org
