[Guruvayur/Guruvayoor] Vishnu's Avatars/Incarnations

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Hare Krishna !

Though this is not addressed to me, I still would

like to chip in (rather, *barge in*)with the reply !!

 

The concept of Dasavathara is very common especially

in our south Indian states. But if you read the Srimad

Bhagavatam, which is the most authoritative scripture,

nowhere in the whole work, there is mention about such

a concept. The Bhagavatam describes as many as 24

different incarnations of the Lord and then goes on to

mention that there are many many more incarnations of

the Lord :

 

" O brähmanas, the incarnations of the Lord are

innumerable, like rivulets flowing from inexhaustible

sources of water. " [srimad Bhagavatam 1.3.26]

 

Given this situation the concept of Dasavatara is

most likely to have emerged from the works of Sri

Jayadeva who wrote the Gita Govinda and the Dasavatara

Stotra therein.

 

Lord Buddha is definitely mentioned as an avatara of

the Lord in the Srimad Bhagavatam:

 

" Then, in the beginning of Kali-yuga, the Lord will

appear as Lord Buddha, the son of Aïjanä, in the

province of Gayä, just for the purpose of deluding

those who are envious of the faithful theist. " [srimad

Bhagavatam 1.3.24]

 

The Lord incarnates whenever and wherever there is a

decline in religious principles, for protecting His

devotees, destroying the demoniac, and re-establishing

religious principles. Therefore we need not be

confused about the 10 avataras - It is best we

understand that the Lord can take any number of

incarnations and is not limited to 10 !!

 

Hope this helps.

-sriram

=======

 

--- gopi krishnan <gopick09 wrote:

 

> Pranam Dear Induji

>

> I am getting confused about the Dasavatharam. Is

> BUDHA an incarnation of Vishnu? In many sriptures,

> Balaram is the eighth Avathar and Shri Krishna the

> 9th Avathar. The title slokha of Amrita TV serial

> " KRISHNA KRIPA SAGARM " also says Balaram as eighth

> Avathar. In KAMPA RAMAYANAM also BALARAM the eighth

> Avathar. Few years before, I saw a Dasavatharam Bale

> by Sathya Sai group. In that Budha was 9th Avathar.

> Which is right??

>

> Hare Krishna

>

> Gopi

>

> Indu <sowparnika999 wrote:

> The Story of MASTYA Avatar

> In MASTYA Avatar, Lord Vishnu incarnates himself

> as a fish in this world. In the earliest yuga (era)

> of Sata-yuga, a king named Manu was performing

> severe penance for thousands of years. One day as he

> was performing ablutions with river water, a small

> fish came into his hands and just as he was about to

> throw the fish back into the river, the fish

> requested the king to save its life. Heeding its

> request, the king put the fish into a jar of water

> but the fish started growing and the jar was not big

> enough for it. Then the king threw it into the

> river, but it soon it outgrew the river and the king

> then threw it into Ganges and then into the ocean.

> The king realised that it was Lord Vishnu himself

> and then the lord made an appearance and made a

> special request to the king. It predicted that the

> world would come to an end by a huge flood in seven

> days and requested the king to build a huge boat and

> take the seven sages(hermits), seeds of all plants,

> one animal of each type and told

> him that he would appear as a fish to propel the

> boat to Mt Himavan for surviving the flood to the

> next yuga(eon). True to his word, after seven days

> the Lord appeared and the king tied the boat to the

> fish by using the royal serpent Vasuki and the fish

> took all of them to Mt Himavan and kept them there

> till the flood was over and in the new era, the king

> started procreation a for the new era. The

> Story of KURMA Avatar

> In KURMA Avatar, Lord Vishnu incarnates himself

> as a tortoise. It is an interesting story involving

> both the gods (Devtas) and asuras (demons). In the

> ongoing saga of battle between the gods and asuras,

> on one occasion the gods suddenly lost all their

> strength due to a curse by the short-tempered sage

> Durvasa. The sage had once presented a garland of

> flowers to Indra,king of gods, who carelessly gave

> it away to his elephant which trampled it. The

> Devtas approached Vishnu for help. Vishnu then asked

> them to churn the ocean of milk after adding

> medicines into the ocean. Mt Mandara could be used a

> the churning stick he said. He requested them to ask

> them help of Asuras in lifting the mountain in

> exchange for offer of the share of nectar of

> immortality that would ensue from the churning. Both

> the devatas and the asuras churned the ocean using

> the serpent Vasuki as the rope. At the start,

> playing a Machiavellian trick, Indra, king of the

> gods asked the asuras for the head end of

> vasuki. But asuras suspecting foul play, took the

> head end, only to be deceived as the poison from

> Vasuki was slowly weakening them. But as churning

> was proceeding the mountain was sinking and then

> Lord Vishnu took the form of the tortoise KURMA and

> kept the mountain afloat. As soon as the bowl of

> amrita, the nectar of immortality was out, the

> asuras grabbed it. Then Lord Vishnu took the form of

> an apsara, a beautiful maiden, and seduced the

> asuras into letting her distribute the nectar and

> also to abide by her order of distribution. As soon

> as the devatas were served the maiden disappeared

> thus totally deceiving the asuras and making them

> totally weak. The Story of VARAHA Avatar

>

> In VARAHA Avatar, Lord Vishnu incarnates himself

> as a boar in this world. A demon Hiranyaksha, had

> prayed for Lord Brahma and got awarded a boon that

> no beast nor man nor god could kill him. But somehow

> from the list of beasts the name of boar was

> missing. This proved to be his lacunae. He then

> started a campaign of plunder across the worlds. He

> pushed the world to the Pataal loka, or the under of

> the sea. He stole the Vedas, the holy scriptures

> from the Lord Brahma, while he was asleep and

> performed huge atrocities.

>

> To retrieve the Vedas and to save the world the

> Lord Vishnu assumed the role of a boar and brought

> out the earth from the under of the ocean, using its

> two tusks. It then killed Hiranyaksha and retrieved

> the Vedas from the asura and brought it back to the

> safe custody of the Lord Brahma. The Story

> of NARASIMHA Avatar

> In NARASIMHA Avatar, Lord Vishnu incarnates

> himself as a semi-man,semi-lion in this world. The

> king of demons(asuras), Hiranyakasyapa, wanted to

> become immortal and wanted to remain young forever.

> To this end, he meditated for Lord Brahma and

> because of his severe penance, the gods were

> frightened and asked Brahma to pacify the king.

> Brahma was impressed by his austerity and granted

> him a wish. HiranyaKasyapa wished that he be neither

> killed by a man or beast, nor in daylight or at

> night and neither inside or outside a building.

> Having obtained the wish he considered himself the

> supreme God and frobade all worship of gods by

> anyone. But his son Prahlada, was an ardent devotee

> of Vishnu. This enraged Hiranyakasyapa very much. He

> ordered numerous ways to kill Prahlada including

> asking his sister Holika to sit with Prahlada in the

> fire. But everytime Prahlada escaped unhurt.

> Enraged, once he asked Prahlad to show him the Lord

> Vishnu. Prahlad said, " He is everywhere " . Further

> enraged, Hiranyakasyapa knocked down a pillar, and

> asked if Lord was present there. Lord Vishnu then

> emerged as a half lion, half man from the pillar

> which was neither inside the house nor outside, and

> the time was evening, neither night nor day. He then

> killed Hiranyakasyapa thus saving the life of his

> devotee Prahlada.

>

> The Story of VAMANA Avatar

> In VAMANA Avatar, Lord Vishnu incarnates himself

> as a dwarf priest in this world. BALI, the grandson

> of Prahlada was a very valorous and mighty asura. By

> his penance and might, he conquered the whole world.

> Indra and other gods fearing that he and asuras

> would conquer all the three worlds, went to Lord

> Vishnu for help. Lord Vishnu was then born as a

> dwarf Vamana in the household of a brahmana(priest).

> He went to Bali on growing up and asked for alms.

> Bali was delighted to offer him anything he

> requested even though his priest warned him that it

> was Lord Vishnu.

>

> Vamana then requested for the amount of land

> that could come under his three feet. Bali

> gracefully agreed. Lord Vishnu then grew in size and

> covered the earth and heaven in two stride. And due

> to lack of space, he put his third leg on Bali

> himself and crushed Bali to the nether or the Patala

> loka(underground world), thus helping the Gods out.

> The Story of PARASURAMA Avatar

> In PARASURAMA Avatar, Lord Vishnu incarnates

> himself as a brahmana(priest) in this world. He was

> brought in this world to avenge all kshatriyas who

> had become arrogant and were suppressing the

> brahmans in the world. He was born to Jamadagni and

> Renuka, and belonged to the Brighu clan. Parashurama

> was always carrying an axe presented to him by Lord

> Shiva of whom he was an ardent devotee. Kartavirya a

> powerful king, once went to Jamadagni's home when he

> was out, and after a meal, stole the Kamadhenu cow,

> which was supposed to give endless quantity of milk.

> Jamadgni was enraged and he went and killed the king

> and brought Kamadhenu back. On hearing this the son

> of the king came back and killed Jamdagni.

>

> Parasurama was enraged at this and went and

> avenged the death of his father by killing all

> kshatriyas in 21 battles. His story is story of the

> supremacy of brahmans over the kshatriyas.

> The Story of RAMA Avatar

> In RAMA Avatar, Lord Vishnu incarnates himself

> as RAMA , the central character in the epic

> RAMAYANA. In this biggest epic of Indian mythology a

> myriad of topics are covered, including war, love,

> brotherhood,ideal man , son etc. It is essentially

> the story of an ideal king, son, father and man,

> RAMA. As an ideal son, he agrees to abide by wishes

> of his father King Dasaratha to spend 14 years in

> forest, along with his wife Sita and brother

> Lakshman. During the course of his stay in forest,

> the demon Ravana abducts his wife Sita. Ram then

> sets out in search of his wife. During this he makes

> friends with king of monkeys Sugreeva, and his

> devotee Hanuman. In the end he wages a war with

> Ravana and rescues Sita to return to Ayodhya and

> rule it as an ideal king for 1000 s of years.

> The Story of KRISHNA Avatar

> In KRISHNA Avatar, Lord Vishnu incarnates

> himself as KRISHNA , the central character in the

> epic MAHABHARATA. In this biggest epic of Indian

> mythology a myriad of topics are covered, including

> war, love, brotherhood, politics etc. It is

> essentially the story of two warring groups of

> cousin brothers, the PANDAVAs and the KAURAVAs. As a

> part of the Mahabahrata, during the war KRISHNA,

> gives a long discourse to his disciple ARJUNA,

> collectively termed as Bhagvad-Gita. Krishna, during

> his child-hood was responsible for the killing of

> Kansa. Krishna is also considered to be an ultimate

> playboy who was resonsible for charming all

> gopikaas(cowherdesses)

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