One thing that interests me about Hinduism is the concept of Brahman, the universal spirit that’s in everything and which the Hindu gods come from.
That makes me wonder, did other ancient pantheons have a similar concept? Did the Greeks and Romans believe in a force above the gods? We’re the fates symbolic of this? What about Mesopotamian or Egyptian mythologies?
I mean no offense by comparing Hinduism to other historic pantheons, I understand there are big differences between them as Hinduism is a modern axial Religion. I’m just curious if they shared the concept of a supreme universal spirit.
Thank you
I can comment for Hellenism (ancient greek religion) - while the religion changed a ton based on the time period and location, at least some times and some places had a somewhat analogous concept. In the Theogeny, an origin story for where everything came from can be found, and in it is included the concept of Chaos - not necessary a being or a spirit or an agent of any kind, but the original state of things from which all else came. It's not the same thing, but it serves a somewhat similar concept in trying to answer "where did the gods come from". I'd recommend googling the Theogeny and reading this portion of it for yourself if you are curious to learn more.
Now, not every time period or place would necessarily have included this belief. Hellenism was not one religion, but a series of regional beliefs that existed roughly in the same canon that got stitched together into one narattive by later contemporaries such as Hesiod, who authored the Theogeny mentioned previously. I'm not sure exactly where and when the concept of Chaos came from unfortunately, so I can't help you beyond "it was part of the large tradition of stories that Hesiod stitched together".