CHAPTER 14

 
THE CONCEPT OF AVATARS

 

The Doctrine of Avatar

yada yada hi dharmasya
glanir bhavati bharata
abhyutthanam adharmasya
tadatmanam srjamy aham

Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion--at that time I descend Myself.

paritranaya sadhunam
vinasaya ca duskrtam
dharma-samsthapanarthaya
sambhavami yuge yuge

To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I myself appear age after age.

"Whenever the world declined in virtue and righteousness; and vice and injustice mount the throne, then cometh I, the Lord and revisit my world in visible form, and mingled as a man with men, and by my influence and teachings do I destroy the evil and injustice and reestablish virtue and righteousness. Many times have I thus appeared, and many times hereafter shall I come again?"

The purpose of the avatar is defined in Bhagavat Gita 4:7-8

Whenever there is

·         decline of dharma,

·         righteousness,

·         justice,

·         rule of law and

·         there is increase in injustice,

Vishnu incarnates

·         to protect the good, the law abiding and

·         to destroy the evil, the delinquent, the unjust or inequitous and

·         to establish dharama, justice

 

Yet as we go through the Avatars, we will see that this was never accomplished unless the Suras are the only people of god. It is certainly a history of the people who is represented as Suras who are the enemies of the people represented as Asuras.  All the reference to dharma, righteousness, justice, rule of law are the justice of one group of people over another -  unfortunately both these group of people are Bharathians – Indians.  But as far as Vishnu is concerned only the interest of the Devas are counted.

The avatar was at least initially connected to the Dispensational Ages.  We shall now undertake a quick look at the concept of Yuga and their probable origin

Aeons and Avatars

The whole idea of ages and avatars were brought into India by St.Thomas but they were manipulated by the later Gnostics into a fight between good and evil, Suras and the Asuras and developed into myths because of the concept of duality in the world which in turn was introduced into India by the gnostics of Persia and Greece.

 

 

 “Aeons:
The term appropriated by Gnostic heresiarchs to designate the series of spiritual powers evolved by progressive emanation from the eternal Being, and constituting the Pleroma or invisible spiritual world, as distinct from the Kenoma, or visible material world.

The word aeon (aion) signifying "age", "the ever-existing", "eternity", came to be applied to the divine eternal power, and to the personified attributes of that power, whence it was extended to designate the successive emanations from the divinity which the Gnostics conceived as necessary intermediaries between the spiritual and the material worlds. The Gnostic concept of the aeon may be traced to the influence of a philosophy which postulated a divinity incapable of any contact with the material world or with evil, and the desire to reconcile this philosophy with the Christian notion of a direct interference of God in the affairs of the material world, and particularly in the Creation and Redemption of man.

Jewish angelology, which represented Jehovah ministered to by a court of celestial beings, and Hellenic religious systems, which imagined a number of intermediaries between the finite and the infinite, suggested the emanation from the divinity of a series of subordinate heavenly powers, each less perfect, the further removed it was from the supreme deity, until at length increasing imperfection would serve as the connecting link between the spiritual world and the material world of evil.

In different Gnostic systems the hierarchy of Aeons was diversely elaborated. But in all are recognizable a mixture of Platonic, mythological, and Christian elements. There is always the primitive all-perfect Æon, the fountain-head of divinity, and a co-eternal companion Æon. From these emanate a second pair who, in turn, engenders others, generally in pairs, or in groups of pairs, in keeping with the Egyptian idea of divine couples. One of these inferior Æons, desiring to know the unknowable, to penetrate the secrets of the primal Æon, brings disorder into the Æon-world, is exiled, and brings forth a very imperfect Æon, who, being unworthy of a place in the Pleroma, brings the divine spark to the nether world. Then follows the creation of the material universe.

Finally, there is evolved the Æon Christ, who is to restore harmony in the Æon-world, and heal the disorder in the material world consequent upon the catastrophe in the ideal order, by giving to man the knowledge which will rescue him from the dominion of matter and evil. The number of Æons varies with different systems, being determined in some by Pythagorean and Platonic ideas on the mystic efficacy of numbers; in others by epochs in, or the duration of, the life of Christ. The Æons were given names, each Gnostic system having its own catalogue, suggested by Christian terminology, and by Oriental, or philosophical and mythological nomenclature. There were nearly as many aeonic hierarchies as there were Gnostic systems, but the most elaborate of these, as far as is known, was that of Valentinus, whose fusion of Christianity and Platonism is so completely described in the refutation of this system by St. Irenæus and Tertullian. (See GNOSTICISM, VALENTINUS, BASILIDES, PTOLEMY.) “

Catholic Encyclopaedia  http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01173c.htm

 

This gnostic insertion changed the concept of avatar in terms of hierachies and levels of gods.  This is what we see in the Avatar myths and the categorization of Avatars in Hinduism.  Evidently some time in History gnostics took over the Christian concepts and remodeled it.  The Greeks and the Syrians had their role in this transformation.  As a result the material world is never redeemed but destroyed.  In Christian theology of redemption, the cosmos with its material realm included is redeemed and the blessing of death and decay is removed as sin is removed and beings becomes like the Son of Man.  This is the deification or theosis of christianity.  All things are thus made new and the mahakalpa ends.  It may repeat.  But that is another story if and when it arises.

Vaishnava Avatar in History

This should then give us some idea of the dates of the period of the four yugas and consequently the time of the various avatars.

Kali yuga started    3102 BC
Dwapara Yuga Started  3102 +864,000 =  867,102 BC 
Treta Yuga Started 867,102 +1,296,000 =2,163,102 BC
Satya Yuga Started 2,163,102 + 1,728,000 = 3,891,102 BC

Hence the incarnations are supposed to be in the following period

 

·         Between 3,891,102 and 2,163,102 BC  (2 to 3 million years before) in Satya Yuga:
                   Matsya (fish), Koorma (tortoise), Varaaha (boar), Narasimha (the man lion)

·         Between 2,163,102 and 867,102 BC (1 to 2 million years ago) in the Treta Yuga:
                   Vaamana (the dwarf), Parasurama (the angry man), Rama (the perfect human)

·         Between 867,102 and 3,102 BC (3000 to 1 million years ago) in the Dwapara Yuga:
                   Balarama and Krishna

·         Now expected in some 427,000 years time- Kali Yuga: 
                   Kalki

 

 

In the Krita (Satya Yuga) there is no adharma and dharma stands on all four legs (4), in the Treta Yuga it stands on three legs(3) – adharma is only little.  In fact there was no adharma to be destroyed in the first three avatars if at all the other had any.  In the Dwapara Yuga(2) it stands on two legs and in the Kali Yuga (1) it stands on one leg.  If adharma was the reason for incarnation the number of incarnations in each age should have been the other way round.   There is no reason for the first four avatars at all since there is no evil in the first Satya Yuga.

 

 

 

The following table summarizes the meaning of Vishnu's past 9 avatars:
http://www.comparativereligion.com/avatars.html

Topic	Which avatar's case fits into this scenario
A demon performed austerities and gained too much power over the gods	3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9
The avatar came to save the gods	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9
The avatar came to save humans	1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8
The avatar kills a demon	3, 4, 7, 8
The avatar's form of embodiment	Animal (1, 2, 3), half-beast, half-human (4), human (5, 6, 7, 8, 9) according to how the demon had to be deceived.

8 out of 9 avatars (no. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9) are involved in saving the world of gods from the power attained by the demons, while only 6 is concerned with saving humans alone.  Whenever there was a conflict of interest between the gods and the non-gods, incarnation of God sided with the gods and in fact outright cheated the non-gods.

The general structure of the Hindu Avatar myth follows a strict progression as follows:

1.      A demon (Asuras) gains great power through austerities and becomes invincible

2.      The demon defeats gods (Suras, Devas) totally and takes over their lands

3.      The Suras pettitions one of the great deities.

4.      The deity takes a form suitable to trick the Asura.

5.      Demon is defeated without violating any legal conditions within the law.

6.      Suras praise the demon slayer.

A casual look will verify that most of the incarnations do not fulfill the reason for avatar.  Evidently it is a one sided story and certainly refers not to how the supreme God of all Creations deal with his creation, but how the King of a group of people deal with their enemies.  It is this obvious character of the avatar that I treat as historical.

 

The Reality Check with Time

 

This would imply that except for the Balabhadra and Krishna avatars all avatars took place over a million years ago.  Even those two fall within the vast time frame of 3000 to 867000 BC (nearly a million years).    It would also imply that human civilization with highly sophisticated social system, kingship, chariots, war machines, flying vehicles etc were in existence in India for over three million years.

“Using the Hubble constant and information about the expansion of the Universe from the Hubble Space Telescope, we have been able to measure the age of the Universe to between 12 and 14 billion years old.” Dr. Wendy Freedman
Dr. Wendy Freedman  is one of the leaders of an international team of 27 astronomers at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, America.

Poor scientists, What do these people really know?

 Compare this with the evolutionary history of man.

A timeline of human evolution, history, technology, and the fates of human societies.
Shane Ross
https://ideotrope.org/index.pl?node_id=40287

This is History, history understood as a single, coherent, evolutionary process, when taking into account the experience of all peoples in all times. Time in BC

 4 million | First bipedal human ancestor. Bipedalism appears suddenly in the fossil record. Could be Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid that lived in the wooded grasslands of the Horn of Africa.

1.8 million-100,000 | Homo erectus in Africa, Asia, and Indonesia (and Europe?). First use of crude stone tools and may have harnessed naturally occuring fire (1.5 Myr, Swartkrans, South Africa). Genetic studies indicate modern humans are not descended from H. erectus, which appears as an evolutionary side-branch and dead end.

200,000-150,000 | Genetic Eve (or "mitochondrial Eve"), the most recent common female ancestor of all living humans (from mitochondrial DNA, mtDNA, dating). The mtDNA from Eve merely acts as a tracer that links all present-day humans to a single population of ancient humans, who lived in Africa.

150,000-30,000 | Archaic Homo sapiens, otherwise known as Neanderthals, appear in the fossil record, distinct from earlier protohumans. They occupied Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. Differ from modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) in skeletal details and behavior. Recent genetic studies also indicate that modern humans are not descended from Neanderthals. They used crude stone tools and may have harnessed naturally occuring fire. They buried their dead and cared for their sick. Hands could not grip complicated tools, preventing them from engaging in fine motor skills, such as carving and painting. Cultural sharing between Neanderthals and modern humans or Homo erectus during time of overlap?

150,000-60,000 | Modern humans appear (sometimes called Homo sapiens sapiens), originally in Africa, probably east Africa. Same stone tools as Neanderthals. No art. Unimpressive hunting skills (killing easy-to-kill, not-at-all-dangerous animals.) No fishing.

140,000 | Diaspora of Neanderthals and modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens)? First domestication of large mammal, the dog.

94,000-12,000 | Prehistoric 'Hobbit'. A little over 3 feet tall, a distinct humanoid species, Homo floresiensis people flourished on Flores from 94,000 to 12,000 years ago, when a volcano killed them off. They apparently hunted dwarf elephants with spears.

60,000-40,000 | Genetic Adam (or "Y-chromosomal Adam"), the most recent common male ancestor of all living humans (from Y-chromosome dating). 

60,000-40,000 | Great Leap Forward (anthropological "big bang" of human expression) among Homo sapiens sapiens (modern humans). First standardized stone tools. First jewelry. First painting. Timing of innovation coincides with first appearance of modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens; Cause of innovation unknown, could be due to increase in brain size, some say vocal box became well developed. Most likely first took place among one group of humans in Africa.

60,000 | Diaspora of humans reaches China via Southeast Asia.

50,000 | Human population: 1.2 million hunter-gatherers, H. sapiens sapiens.

50,000 | First human settlement in the Americas, according to evidence found at a South Carolina site. If true, beats the oldest accepted date by 35,000 years. Did they come by sea from Africa or Europe?

45,000 | Humans begin to enter southwestern Europe. Some 6 percent of Europeans are descended from the continent's first founders, who entered Europe from the Near East (these people are modern Basque and Scandinavians). Skeletons are fully modern. Tools of bone: fishhooks, engraving tools, needles. Multi-piece tools. Harpoons, spear-throwers, bows and arrows to catch large, difficult animals. Nets, lines, and snares for fishing. First art: cave paintings, statues, and musical instruments.

The fallacy of such a history as stated in the Hindu myths is obvious when we realize that even the most ancient Indus Valley Civilization extends only from 3,300 BC.  Unless you are one of those who believes that there had been a highly civilized India two million years ago whose remnants even in archeology are destroyed with time, the history as given by the myths will be a fiction of imagination. Scholars like Vamadeva David Frawly and Sri Yukteswar Giri were quick to discern it and is now trying to down grade the traditional yuga to historic lengths

Yet we should not forget that Sanskrit itself started only by the mid second century AD, and the Indian Time Metric System came into existence at the earliest by fifth century AD.

 

What we have seen is that there is no mention even of names of avatars in any pre-christian documentation or archealogy.  All these names appeared in due course of time after the Christian Era as is represented in the Purana Stories and in the icons that appeared in the temples.  We wont be able to see any historic person in the form of avatar – not even Krishna and Rama.  That is why the Vaishnavites want to make them long predated to a period when we don’t have any history and it will be impossible to provide any positive  or negate evidence.  The Avatar datings are these days done using intricate astronomic references that are found in the Puranas written as late as the fifteeth century AD.  Other than that we don’t have any way of finding the historical person of the Avatar and it will remain only as a fiction.  Most of these personalities were actually evolved by compiling characters and traits from heroes of our period and presenting it as a unified ideal personality.  Evidently none of these persons lived prior to Christian Era – at least we don’t have any evidence whatsoever for that.

 

In a country where incarnations are still walking from Kashmir to Puttaparthy these stories will be taken as true by very sincere believers.  Once stories are established additional stories are added in time to elaborate the character and sometimes to cover the trails of truth. The power of the myth continues to delude the masses.

 

Re-Interpretation of the Theory of Avataras/Kashinath. 1997

"This book tells about the re-interpretation of the theory of Avataras, Hindu Avataras have always been depicted by the priests as the mythological entitles to be worshiped by the believers with fear and hope. Even the modern scholars of Hinduism also putting all their knowledge aside, often paint Avataras as the supernatural beings, plastered with devotional praise, to be worshipped alone. But a careful study says that the Theory of Avataras, among other things, played a great role in unifying several conflicting elements in ancient India to make it a united nation. The class contradictions between the Brahmins and Kshatriyas, which claimed a lot of human blood, were pacified by delcaring Rama and Parshurama, although contemporaries, as the Avataras of Vishnu. Later the Buddha, an agnostic, was also declared to be the Avatara, with the result that Buddhism, with all its high ideals, became one with Hinduism and India was preserved as a land of unity in diversity. But later this doctorine was forgotten. Had the Hindu genius used the Theory of Avataras when confronted with Christianity and Islam, generating crisis, much human blood could be saved that was poured in India, and the country itself was divided in the name of religion obviously, the Theory of Avataras has again to play its tested role to spread unity and love among all the inhabitants of India and the world as well. This process is natural of Hindu genius and the need of the day." (jacket)

Purpose of incarnation

http://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/essays/aspectsofgod.asp

An incarnation is essentially an interference in the normal progression of the manifested worlds. It becomes necessary due to the remorseless violation of divine laws by the actions of beings endowed with free will. The law of karma makes each individual being responsible for its action. But in some cases that alone would not act as a deterrent to prevent people from indulging in evil pursuits and causing a great imbalance in the working of the worlds or interfering with the lives of other people. When their number increases disproportionately, a much higher and potent force is required to deal with them. God is not judgmental. But He would also not remain static to the calls of his devotees.

So when the situation reaches a boiling point, He decides to take matters into His own hands and come down to earth in physical form to restore order and morality. In Hinduism, an evil force is not opposed to God against His will. It is a force that works for God in its own evil ways. God uses these forces to create situations that warrant His intervention. It is part of His divine drama already planned and embedded in the design. Most of the demons that He slew during his many incarnations were but his own devotees who out of arrogance asked for things that would ultimately lead to the welfare of the good and the destruction of the evil and themselves. From the perspective of duality, we may say the demon was destroyed by a divine force for a good cause. But from the highest perspective of the unity of all creation, we cannot deny the fact that by destroying the evil force God facilitates its ultimate dissolution into Himself and the dawn of a new awareness and promulgation of a new code of conduct among people. So from the highest perspective, an incarnation is a drama (leela) with in a bigger drama (maha leela), orchestrated by God for his own enjoyment and for keeping His laws in place. This, in brief, is the purpose and justification of an incarnation, which the followers of Vaishnavism accept as an undeniable truth. 

 

 

Here is how the leela is acted out:Shri Mad-Bhaagvat Puraan  Skandh 7:Chapter 1

Shukdev Jee said - "In fact Bhagvaan is Nirgun, Ajanmaa (does not born), cannot be described and is beyond Prakriti, still He with His Maayaa performs all kinds of actions. Sat, Raj and Tam are the Gun of Prakriti, not of Paramaatma. And these three Gun are not always present in the same amount in Prakriti. Bhagavaan takes all Gun at time to time. When Sat Gun is more, He takes care of Devtaa and Rishi; when Rajo Gun is more, He takes care of Daitya; and when Tamo Gun is more, He takes care of Yaksh and Raakshas. When He wants to take any 'body' for Himself then He creates a separate Rajo Gunee creation with His Maaya. When He wants to take strange Yoni (species), He creates them with Sato Gun and when He wants to sleep, then He increases Tamo Gun. Kaal depends on Him not that He depends on Kaal. Whenever this Kaal Eeshwar increases Sato Gun, He increases the power of Devtaa and kills Tamo Gunee Daitya.

Here is how the predestination explained in Vaishanvism:
http://www.gosai.com/chaitanya/saranagati/html/vishnu_mjs/jiva/jiva_6.html

 

Those devotees who were spiritually situated were simply taking part in the Lord's transcendental lila…..  Jaya and Vijaya's fall was a special arrangement of the Lord for His lila…

In the following excerpts Srila Prabhupada states something very different; that Jaya and Vijaya are pure devotees who have descended to the material world by the Lords arrangement:

This incident, therefore, proves that those who have once entered a Vaikuntha planet can never fall down. The case of Jaya and Vijaya is not a falldown; it is just an accident. (Bhag. 3.16.12, purp.)

A devotee once accepted by the Lord, can never fall down. That is the conclusion of this incident. [Jaya and Vijaya] (Bhag. 3.16.29, purp.)

From authoritative sources it can be discerned that associates of Lord Visnu who descend from Vaikuntha do not actually fall. They come with the purpose of fulfilling the desire of the Lord, and their descent to this material world is comparable to that of the Lord. The Lord comes to this material world through the agency of His internal potency, and similarly, when a devotee or associate of the Lord descends to this material world, he does so through the action of the spiritual energy. Any pastime conducted by the Supreme Personality of Godhead is an arrangement by yoga-maya, not maha-maya.

Therefore it is to understood that when Jaya and Vijaya descended to this material world, they came because there was something to be done for the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Otherwise it is a fact that no one falls from Vaikuntha. (Bhag. 7.1.35, purp.) ,,

Similarly, Krsna does not fight with anyone ordinary, but rather with some of His great devotees. Because Krsna wants to fight, some of His devotees come down to this material world to become His enemies and fight with Him. For example, the Lord descended to kill Hiranyakasipu and Hiranyaksa. Should we think that these were ordinary living entities?

The fighting spirit is there in Krsna also.  …. Just like Jaya Vijaya came just to satisfy his master. His master desired fighting, so some of His servant went to the material world and became great enemy like Hiranyakasipu. Ravana.”

 

We can see that the whole history of cosmic creation and cycles are considered by the Vaishnavites as leela – a fun game, which is all pre-planned.  This can be seen clearly in the case of the ten avatars which we will be looking at.