Avatar

(“descent”) In Hindu mythology, the
descent (of a deity), but more colloquially the incarnation, of a deity on earth.
The concept of avatars has been best
developed by the devotees (bhakta) of
the god Vishnu, who perceive him as
taking a specific form to help the world.
Examples of avatars can be found for
other divinities as well.
Hindus draw a distinction between
full avatars, which have the complete
power of the deity, and partial incarnations, or anshavatars. Vishnu has ten
full avatars, each of whom has appeared
to restore the cosmic balance when the
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Avalon, Arthur
The ten avatars of the god Vishnu. In Hindu mythology, Vishnu has appeared on earth in different forms:
Fish, Tortoise, Boar, Man-lion, Vamana (dwarf), Parashuram, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and Kalki.
world has fallen out of equilibrium. The
root cause of such disequilibrium is usually a demon (asura) who has grown too
strong and uses that power to oppress
others. This imbalance prompts Vishnu
to take form as an avatar, destroy the
evildoers, and definitively restore the
cosmic balance.
Although there is some variation in
the list of Vishnu’s avatars, the generally
accepted list is as follows: Fish, Tortoise,
Boar, Man-Lion, Vamana (dwarf ),
Parashuram, Rama, Krishna, Buddha,
and Kalki. This list of avatars follows an
“evolutionary” sequence—the first three
are animals, the fourth a hybrid mananimal, and the ones after that mythic
heroes and sages; the exception is the
Buddha, a real person who has been
incorporated into the Hindu pantheon.
The tenth form, Kalki avatar, is yet to
come, and his coming will herald the
end of the age. Vishnu’s partial avatars—
as sages, saints, and gods—are countless
and potentially limitless, providing a
ready-made way for new Hindu movements to ascribe divine authority to
their founders.
Although the avatar concept is most
commonly associated with Vishnu, it
has been applied to other Hindu gods as
well. One example of partial avatars can
be seen in the Mahabharata, the later of
the two great Hindu epics, in which all
five of the Pandava brothers are partial
incarnations of various gods. In addition, devotees of the god Shiva have
developed a list of his twenty-one
avatars, who are saints, sages, and minor
deities. This list was probably developed
in response to the Vaishnava doctrine of
avatars, but Shiva’s forms are far less
important than Vishnu’s; Vishnu’s
avatars include Rama and Krishna,
who are major objects of worship in
their own right.
For the Vaishnavas, the avatar
doctrine is generally seen as a way
to assimilate existing cults into
the pantheon by claiming that
various deities are merely different
manifestations of Vishnu. The Shaiva
avatars were developed much later,
essentially so that Shiva would also
have these forms. See also Jagannath
and Balarama.