The Ten Incarnations
 The Story
of
the conquest of Vaishnavism
  over the buddhists &Christians in India

Buddha 

We have seen how Buddhism practically destroyed Brahminism.  However with the resurgence of Hinduism which rose from the ashes of Vedism through gnostic-christian theology, the presence of Buddha remained a thorn to the Hinduism especially to Vaishanavism. Like expert syncretists Vaishnavites were able to abosorb Buddha as one of the incarnations of Vishnu.

They declared the Buddha as an avatara of Vishnu, some times around eighth century, as a verse to this effect from Matsya Purana is engraved in a monument at Mahabalipuram. The process seems to be completed by the time of Jaydeo writing "Gita Govind" in 12th century, including Buddha's name in it as an "Avatara". We are also aware that an average Brahmin takes a great pride that Buddhism was driven away from this land by Adi- Sankara.

Declaring the Buddha as ninth avatara of Vishnu, L. M. Joshi observes, was a "remarkable cultural feat", achieved by the Brahmanic Puranas, which later caused confusion in the minds of people with the result that Buddhism came to be treated as a "heretical" and "aesthetic" branch of Brahmanism. The present scholars like P. V. Kane, Radhakrishnan and even Swami Vivekanand, have pushed this confusion further back to the time of origin of Buddhism, by saying that Upanishadas are the origin of Buddhist thought. To this list must be added the name of B. G. Tilak, who devoted a full chapter in "Gita Rahashya" to prove that Buddhism was an off-shoot of Hinduism, and one more chapter for proving that Christianity arose from Buddhism and hence eventually from Hinduism.

Jina Rsabha as an "Avatara" of Visnu
Padmanabh S. Jaini
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 40, No. 2 (1977)

The declaration of the Lord of the Gita (x,41) that whatever being shows ‘supernal manifestation’ (vibhutimat) or majesty or vigour is sprung from a fraction of his glory, may be taken as an open sanction for conferring the status of an avatara on any person of an exalted nature.  Nevertheless, the inclusion of Buddha in the list of avataras must sound incredicble as he evidently is not only an adversary of Visnu but is opposed to the very theistic conception of the Vaisnava religion.  The full story of the ‘avatarization’ of this great sramana is shrouded in mystery.  More or less all major Puranas follow the lead of the Mahabharata,  and confine their account of this great avatara to only a couple of lines.  The account invariably consists of the repetition of the fiction that the [anti-Vedic] preaching of the Buddha had [also] the divine purpose of destroying the asuras, who as a result of his teaching desisted from offering the sacrifices and thus ceased to be a danger to the gods!  The credit for assigning this avatara  a more generous role goes probably to Jayadeva, the twelfth-century Vaisnava poet who in his Gitagovinda emphasized the great compassion of the Buddha [towards the animals slaughtered in the Vedic sacrifices].

Amongst the Puranic texts he is mentioned as one of the ten Avataras of Vishnu.  Some Puranas and Sastras that mentions Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu are:

·         Harivamsha (1.41)

·         Vishnu Purana (3.18)

·         Bhagavata Purana (1.3.24, 2.7.37, 11.4.23)

·         Garuda Purana (1.1, 2.30.37, 3.15.26)

·         Agni Purana (16)

·         Narada Purana (2.72)

·         Linga Purana (2.71)

·         Padma Purana (3.252) etc

·         Rishi Parashara's Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (2:1-5/7).

·         Brahmanda Purana

·                 Bhavishya Purana

·                 Matsya Purana(285.6-7)

·                Varaha Purana

matsya-kūrmo varāhaś ca nṛsiṃha-vāmanas tathā |

rāmo rāmaś ca rāmaś ca buddha-kalkiś ca te daśāḥ ||

In this buddha replaced Krishna in the traditional dasavatara found in other Puranas or extended the number of incarnations.  The Gitagovinda of Sri Jayadeva takes Balarama and omits Krishan making Krishna as the Supreme Lord, the Purusottama,(Gitagovinda 1.1.16).  In others Balarama is omitted and Buddha is added.

Early Buddhism was indeed atheistic and so it remained a problem to say that God incarnated and denied the very existence of God.  The clever way out was the explanation that he took birth as Buddha  to "mislead the demons":

mohanārthaṃ dānavānāṃ bālarūpī pathi-sthitaḥ |

putraṃ taṃ kalpayām āsa mūḍha-buddhir jinaḥ svayam ||

tataḥ saṃmohayām āsa jinādyān asurāṃśakān |

bhagavān vāgbhir ugrābhir ahiṃsā-vācibhir hariḥ ||

-     Brahmanda Purana

In order to delude the demons, he (Lord Buddha) was present in the form of a child on the way while the foolish Jina (a demon), imagined him to be his son. Later on, Lord Sri Hari (as avatara-buddha) expertly deluded Jina and other demons by his strong words of non-violence.

By deluding the demons Buddha was able to get back the power to the devas.

` The delusion of the false teacher paused not with the conversion of the Daityas to the Jaina and Bauddha heresies, but with various erroneous tenets he prevailed upon them to apostatize, until the whole were led astray, and deserted the doctrines and observances inculculated bythe 3 Vedas. [The teacher was an illusory form of Vishnu, while the Daityas could not be destroyed whilst they performed the sacred rites adn were slain b the gods]'

-- [V.P. Bk III Ch XVIII p. 271]

At this time, reminded of the Kali Age, the god Vishnu became born as Gautama, the Shakyamuni, and taught the Buddhist dharma for ten years. Then Shuddodana ruled for twenty years, and Shakyasimha for twenty. At the first stage of the Kali Age, the path of the Vedas was destroyed and all men became Buddhists. Those who sought refuge with Vishnu were deluded.
- Bhavishya Purana

"tatah kalau sampravritte
sammohaya sura-dvisham
buddho namnañjana-sutah
kikateshu bhavishyati

Then, in the beginning of Kali-yuga [he] will become the Buddha by name, the son of Anjana, in Bihar, for the purpose of confusing those who were enemies of the devas.  - (srimad-bhagavatam 1.3.24)

"deva-dvisham nigama-vartmani nishthitanam
purbhir mayena vihitabhir adrishya-turbhih
lokan bhnatam mati-vimoham atipralobham
vesham vidhaya bahu bhashyata aupadharmyam

When the atheists, after being well versed in the Vedic scientific knowledge, annihilate inhabitants of different planets, flying unseen in the sky on well-built rockets prepared by the great scientist Maya, the Lord will bewhilder their minds by dressing Himself attractively as Buddha and will preach on subreligious principles." Bhag., Canto 2, Ch. 7, Text 37

In a sense this is what really happenned.  Atheism gave way to theism even within Buddhism soon after the Ministry of St.Thomas in Asia.  As a result Brahminism was able to worm in the newly formed  Hinduism whereby they came back to control the power over the Indian masses.

nindasi yajnavidhe rahaha zRti jAtaM
sadaya hRidaya darzita pazu ghAtaM
kezava! dhRta buddha zarIra!
jaya jagadIza! hare!

'O Lord Kesava!  You took the form of Buddha deva to critisize the Vedas and to rebuke Yajnas, out of Your mercy towards the animals, who were being slaughtered by ritualists for trivial material gain. You are the same Hari, the Lord of all !'  -Sri Jayadeva 'dazAvatAra' stotra 1.9

Thus according to Jayadeva, the Buddha who criticised the Vedas and the Yajbas is the same Buddha who is the avatar of Vishnu.  Helmuth von Glasenapp attributes these developments to a Hindu desire to absorb Buddhism in a peaceful manner, both to win Buddhists to Vishnuism and also to account for the fact that such a significant heresy could exist in India.

However not all scholars are satisfied with such a situation.  How can an incarnation teach and establish total foolishness to negate very theistic understanding? For them the only solution is that this Buddha who is the incarnation of Vishnu is not really the historical Buddha.  So there must be some other Buddha about whom we don’t really have any history. Only we don’t know him in history just like all other incarnations have no history.  So Buddha can also be pushed back millions of years.

According to Çréla Jéva Gosvämé, the Buddha incarnation mentioned in this verses appeared in a different Kali age.  Vaisnava Vijaya: The Life History of Mayavadism" by Srila Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Maharaja and there he argues that there are two Buddhas. He bases his argument primarily on the fact that the Bhagavatam mentions the birthplace and parents of the Visnu-avatara Buddha and that these differ from those of Siddhartha Buddha (or Sakya Singha Buddha). Visnu-avatara Buddha was born in Gaya; Siddhartha took birth in Kapilavastu, Nepal.  The same argument is presented by Srila B.B. Tirtha Maharaja

MODERN BUDDHA AND VISHNU AVATAR BUDDHA ARE DIFFERENT

  http://www.vina.cc/stories/PHILOSOPHICAL/2006/5/modern.buddha.html

But Stephen Knapp upholds the opposite view.

"This verse shows that Lord Buddha was an incarnation of the Supreme Being who would appear in Gaya, a town in central India. Nevertheless, some historians may point out that Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was actually born in Lumbini, Nepal, and that his mother was Queen Mahamaya. Therefore, they might feel that this verse is innacurate. But Siddhartha became the Buddha after he attained spiritual enlightenment during his meditation under the Bo tree in Gaya. This means that his spiritual realization was his second and most important birth. Futhermore, Siddhartha's mother, Queen Mahamaya, died several days after Siddhartha's birth, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother, Anjana. So the prediction in the Bhagavatam is accurate."

(Stephen Knapp. 1997. THE VEDIC PROPHECIES: A NEW LOOK INTO THE FUTURE", page 4.)