[quote]
Originally posted by Victory:
"YADA YADA HI DHARMASYA,
GLANIR BHAVATHI BHARATHA,
ABHYUTTHANAM ADHARMASYA,
TADAATMAANAM SRUJAAMYAHAM"
"To Restore truthfulness, rightenousness and to punish the wrong and the guilty, I will keep on reincarnating"
[/quote]
** The Avatar Fiction**
By Bhaktavatsa
Reprinted from CARAVAN, August (I), 1968
The twenty-eighth article in Caravan Reprint Series – Volume One
** Avatars did not exist, do not exist and would not exist.**
"Yada yada hi dharmasya glanirbhavati Bharata!
Abhyutthanamdharmasya tadatmanam srijamyadham!!
Paritranaya sadhunam vinashya cha dushkrittam!
Dharmasamsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge, yuge!!"
** ("O, Bharat! whenever there is decline of righteousness and unrighteousness is on the ascendence, then I create myself. To protect the virtuous, to destroy the wicked, to establish 'dharma', I am born in every age.") ** (Bhagwad Gita)
THE ABOVE words are ascribed to a supposed 'avatar' (the word 'avatar' derives from the root 'tri' with preposition 'ava', literally meaning 'descending'. Avatar means ‘incarnation’ of god). Here is the present age of unrighteousness. Why does not the 'avatar' create himself now? He did not bother to protect the Jews from Hitler. He did not descend to punish the Nazis when they perpetrated indescribable crimes and genocide. Whether the Jews and others were virtuous (sadhunam) or not, the Nazis were definitely wicked (dushkritas).
Avatar Theory Exposed
Were not mass extirpations by Stalin or Mao acts of 'adharma’ (wickedness)?' Yet no 'avatar' (incarnation of god) came to protect the innocent? When applied to world events, the 'avatar' theory stands exposed. Even if we confine it to India, we can hardly justify the promises made in the above two shlokas.
In historical times, from the Macedonian invasion in 326 BC onwards, there have been raids on India. It is here that the 'avatar' theory proves meaningless. Sometimes an 'avatar' was supposed to have been born just to punish a solitary killing. But centuries of systematic raids and attacks failed to induce an 'avatar' to come to the rescue.
** If 'avatars' had come at appropriate times, there would have been no British Raj, no Pakistan, no gruesome riots or carnage during the Partition in 1947-48, no Kashmir problem, no 1965 war! **
Let us mark the irony of it. We call our country India and we call ourselves Hindus. The word 'Hindu' is derived from Sindhu. No 'avatar' has come to protect or recover the regions drained by the river Sindhu! Should not we rename the country? Should not we rename ourselves?
Why dwell on the past? Let us come to the present. Hindu society today is infected by perverted views, chaotic values, 'adharma’, ‘anachara' and derelictions, minor or major, deliberate or ignorant. There is imperative need for rooting out these evils. Why has not any 'avatar' come forth to combat the negative and sinister forces operating at the conceptual level and the mental planes?
That '** Dasavatar' is a mere fabrication of a fertile Brahmin brain is fairly obvious. Leaving aside the mythical five "avatars' – Matsya, Kurma, Varan, Vaman and Narsimha – there is no unanimity regarding the other five human 'avatars' – Krishna and Ram always find a place in the list. Two more are arbitrarily chosen from the list of three – Parasuram, Balaram and Buddha. And the last is Kalki 'avatar'.**
The achievements of these heroes are not at all considerable enough to justify their deification. ** Balaram, in Krishna's own words, 'could think of nothing but his muscles and his excellent wines' ** (Shantiparv, Mahabharat, Chapter 81). Parasuram could boast of nothing but extirpation of monarchs twenty one times.
Mourning Women
** Krishna's main achievement is said to be the reduction of 'bhoobhara' (excess population) and the establishment of 'dharma' through the great Mahabharat.** But that is questionable. For what was swept away by the great war was not the scum of the earth but the very flower of society. Who remained after the war: only mourning women and greedy bandits (who victimised even Krishna's people). Chaos and anarchy prevailed in the land. Can we call this 'dharmasamsthapana?'
The Mahabharat took place about 3000 BC, according to tradition or more probably after 1000 BC according to historians. We have systematic recorded history only from about 500 BC. These centuries of political instability, obscurity and unsettled conditions are due entirely to a meaningless fratricidal war elevated to a war between 'dharma' and 'adharma'.
Neither were the Pandavas all 'dharmic' (consider, for example, the blatant lie of Dharmaputra regarding the death of Aswathama to make Drona retire), nor were the Kauravas all 'adharmic; (Duryodhan's name was originally Suyodhan i.e., good at war.) To boost the Pandavas, Duryodhan's original name was converted deliberately to Duryodhan by addition of an unpardonable prefix 'dur' (bad).
Accounts of later writers are always to be taken with reservation but even the carefully whitewashed and dressed-up accounts regarding Krishna do not make his part in the Mahabharat creditable. He used unedifying tactics many times. We are puzzled why a supposed divine incarnation should employ mean tricks against human beings.
The 'Gita' may be cited as Krishna's permanent contribution to humanity. He might have expatiated on the Yogic methods to deserving disciples but he would not have flaunted them in the following manner:
"Nanthoshthi mana divyanama vibhutinam, Parantapa!
Esha thoodeshata: Prokotho vibhuthervistaro maya!"
"O, Parantapa, of my divine glories there is no end. This is only a brief description by me of the extent of my powers."
(Bhagwad Gita, Chapter 10)
A real Yogi has the humility and reticence of a saint. It seems incredible that the same Krishna who complained with poignant humility to Narda: "This great family and clan of mine, they call me Lord, but in reality I am a veritable slave to them in the mask of their master.' (Shantiparva, Ch. 81), should make a show of his yogic achievement.
The real absurdity is the inappropriate place where the message of the Gita was delivered. Thousands of enemy troops (who did not recognize or who did not want to recognise Krishna's greatness) could not have waited patiently for hours on the battlefield for Krishna to finish his exposition consisting of over 700 shlokas. What is bizarre about it is that down the centuries, scholars (including the supposedly critical Western and Westernised ones) have been swallowing naively the fiction of a religious exposition on the eve of a bloody battle. Surely it is an example of interpolation by Krishna's followers.
Deification
Apologists for 'avatars' can point out the fact that great kings; like Ashoka, Harsha, Rajaraja, Krishnadevaraya, were not deified because these kings lacked something which Ram and Krishna possessed. According to their view Ram and Krishna were more than ordinary kings; they were 'Gyani' and 'Yogi' respectively.
To revere them as saints is one thing but to magnify their importance and deify them is to betray lack of perspective. There have been greater saint-kings (like Janak) and saints than Ram and Krishna. Rightly did Swami Ramtirtha say, as he matured in spiritual sadhna, 'Ram and Krishna are in the B.A. (graduate level) class, whereas Yajnavalkya and Ashtavakra are in M.A. (post-graduate level) class' (Mystical Correspondence).
Historical Forces
How many of us know of the great sage Upamanyu who gave 'Sivadiksha' to Krishna? The great sage Agastya is said to have brought civilisation to the South – bringing Tamil grammar too. So prevalent is the Agastya legend that navigators in Japan still worship him as their patron saint.
Shankarabhagvadpada (not his so-called successors who have earned political notoriety) who reconciled various schools of religious thought, organized various sects, composed 'Advaita' works and devotional songs and established spiritual centres in four or five comers in India, ranks as one of the greatest saints of all times and lands.
It seems historical forces operated in the deification process of Ram and Krishna. The objective behind the move was to re-attract the people who had been attracted by the popular Jataka tales of Buddhism. In recent times, the attempt to deify Gandhi has failed and is not likely to succeed in future because it lacks Brahmin support.
The Brahmins wanted to deify Akbar but, as Jadunath Sarkar points out, the Muslims would not have it. So we find that a good many factors – religious necessity, Brahmin support, absence of resistance by followers – count in the matter of avatarisation of our heroes.
That kings like Ram and Krishna rather than others were deified is again quite accidental and arbitrary. For they are merely archetypal heroes of Hindus, as Jesus is of his followers. Carl Gustav Jung has discussed this matter at considerable length. Archetypes are ideals, aspirations, aims, ambitions of a group of people crystallised in human form. All these heroes did not or need not actually possess the qualities, feats and achievements associated with them. These qualities were projected upon them so that they might be fit objects of worship for the common man. It so happened in India that when historical conditions demanded certain heroes who could serve as archetypes, memories of Ram and Krishna were utilised by the resourceful Brahmins in avatarising them.
** The trouble with the avatar theory and worship of 'avatars' is that the common man will deem it sacrilegious to imitate Ram or Krishna because they were divine beings in human form. The common man will thus imitate the accepted followers and worshippers of Ram and Krishna – a Guha, a Vibhishana, an Arjuna and so on. Such imitation cannot produce first-rate men.**
Justification of Sensuality
Another grave charge against worshipping the supposed 'avatars’ is that it legalizes anthropomorphic worship. What happens usually is that it pegs down an individual's progress by giving him a false sense of satisfaction. Generally the spiritual evolution of an individual is arrested by the self-opiated smug feeling that he is being religious by worshipping fictionalised heroes.
The average Hindu is 'not' austere. He is chronically given to relaxing, is highly sensuous, easy going and pleasure loving. In elevating certain human beings to the deity level, he has elevated these qualities too to a high level. To justify his own sensuality, the Hindu ascribed thousands of wives to Krishna, concocted stories of 'Raskrida', and lived under the self-deluded feeling that his sensuousness was after all justifiable by saying 'Alankarapriya Vishnu'.
** How many times do we note people, when told about the impropriety of some of their acts, exclaiming coolly, 'O, even an 'avatar' of Krishna's order employed human tricks. Why shouldn't I, a mere mortal?' Such rationalising is highly dangerous. **
This unwarranted mix-up and identification of human beings with God has led to unfortunate results. ** The Hindu gods easily fall a prey to lust, eroticism, jealousy, greed, etc. The ‘Puranas’ make loathsome reading with teeming examples of episodes where gods display human weaknesses with facile ease. **
So far we have discussed the theoretical side of the 'avatar' concept. Let us consider its practical value. Avatarists may cite a number of instances of their 'avatars' answering the 'bhaktas' prayers. They will hold that not only in India but elsewhere too, avatars have answered the supplications of the faithful. But this is just the point that goes against them.
If different people, with different traditions, culture, symbols, concepts and rituals, in different lands have been able to realise their wishes, then the very arbitrariness of these should show immediately that images, concepts or symbols do not carry any life in themselves but serve only as props for the individual to tap his own unconscious.
** To sum up: avatars did not exist, do not exist and would not exist. Hindus have merely 'avatarised' human beings. 'Avatars' do not descend; men ascend to greatness. So every man can become great and can become something. **