This module provides direct access to all ‘built-in’ identifiers of Python; for example, __builtin__.open is the full name for the built-in function open(). See Built-in Functions and Built-in Constants for documentation.
This module is not normally accessed explicitly by most applications, but can be useful in modules that provide objects with the same name as a built-in value, but in which the built-in of that name is also needed. For example, in a module that wants to implement an open() function that wraps the built-in open(), this module can be used directly:
CPython implementation detail: Most modules have the name __builtins__ (note the 's') made available as part of their globals. The value of __builtins__ is normally either this module or the value of this modules’s__dict__ attribute. Since this is an implementation detail, it may not be used by alternate implementations of Python.
reference from http://docs.python.org