Christian Incarnation and

Hindu Avatara
Francis X. D ’Sa

But though C hrist and K rish n a are the sam e, they are the same in difference,
that is indeed the utility of so m any m anifestations instead of there being only
one as these m issionaries would have it. But is it really because the historical
Christ has been made too much the foundation-stone of the Faith that
C hristianity is failing? {SriA urobindo)'

Introduction
T h e notorious dilemma between truth and method is unavoidable in any
study of a religion or religious belief. On the one hand method cannot by
itself lead to the ‘truth’ of a religious belief and on the other the lack of
method fails in the long run to meet the challenge of superstition and
fundam entalism .

Methodological remarks
T h e difficulty becomes almost insurm ountable when it is a question of
studying beliefs which are at home in a world-view different from one’s
own. U nfortunately the phrase ‘ Incarnation in Asian T h ou gh t’ (the topic
assigned to me) may sound innocuous to Western readers who have grown
up in a Christian way of thinking and believing. T h e repeated use of terms
like ‘incarnation’ in the context of Asian religions tends to make one
overlook the fact that such phrases im perialistically carry over their specific
flavour (derived from the soil of W estern culture) to a vastly different
metaphor-world where th ^ distinctive taste of its owji m etaphors like
avatara is subdued, if not suppressed. T h u s ‘ Incarnation in Asian
Th ou gh t’ would be as innocuous as ‘Avataras in European T h o u g h t’ to
Asian readers.
78 Francis X. D'Sa

T h e way out of this impasse would be one that leads to the awareness of a
specific m etaphor-world and at the same time respects the prim ary claim of
truth. W hatever the chances of success, the enterprise demands that we
reflect critically on the procedures we adopt to enter the world of religion
and the methods we employ in studying them.
With regard to our theme it is necesary to become thematically aware of
the fact that an avatara is at home in a cosmocentric and incarnation in an
anthropocentric w orld-view .2 T o one who has grown up in one world [­
view] only and has had little or no contact with another this will not make
much sense. O nly the one who is aware of the differences in the two w orld­
views will be on the search for an interface that can link the one with the
other because he is in touch with both of them existentially, not merely
cerebrally. O bviously such methodological awareness cannot itself be
reduced to any method; however, it can be made operative through
thematization, not unlike a system-file in a computer which though
operative cannot be opened.

The language o f symbol and metaphor

T h ere is a further point that needs explicitation before proceeding to our
reflection on avataras, and that is the sym bolic nature of religious language.
T h e language of belief, any belief, is sym bolic. We can speak of [belief in
the] avataras only within the world of symbol and m etaphor. Because
belief is an expression of a depth-experience it is to be distinguished from
doctrine which (though popularly understood as belief) is in fact the
attempt [of a later age] to reinterpret the belief in the language of the
reinterpreting com m unity. Belief, then, as an expression of a depth-
experience, belongs to a primordial activity and as such is irreducible to
either knowing or willing. A prim ordial activity has its own specific
dynamism. T h at of belief which expresses itself in metaphor and parable
tends prim arily towards an extension, not of our information but of the
‘frontiers of our being’. T h e result is that the believer perceives the world
differently. With that, what form erly did not make sense to him (like self­
giving or forgiving) begins to do so now.

The divine: the depth-dimension o f reality

Religion is the quest for meaning in all its dimensions. T ry in g to see the
wholeness of reality is another way of putting it, and a third approach
might stress w ork for the welfare of all beings. However one might express
it, religion has to do with the search for ultimate meaning thanks to which
meaning becomes meaningful. If m eaning is the body of a belief,
meaningfulness would constitute its ‘soul’. In one way or another everyone
 Christian Incarnation and Hindu Avatara 79

is in search of m eaningfulness. T h e ukim acy of meaning has to do widi the

depth-dimension of reality and can express itself in a variety of ways. For
belief being the outcome of the discovery of the depth-dimension of reality,
m eaningfulness is the manifestation of this discovery and is encountered in
its human as well as in its cosmic aspects. Hence to speak of the depth-
dimension as the divine is only one of many possible approaches.

Avatara and vibhuti

T h e Hindu tradition has articulated its experience of the depth-dimension
in a variety of w ays.3 O f these the two most important are avatara and
vibhuti: the former stresses the aspect of presence and the latter that of
power. We have avatara when the divine descends into this world and
becomes present in one form ( = nature) or another. But in the
case of the vibhuti the divine is not [fully] present, since a vibhuti
represents only an aspect of the divine and is encountered when the divine
equips someone or som ething with the gift of its power. Whereas in the
avatara it is the divine itself which takes on the nature (i.e. the form) of,
say, a fish or a boar or a human being, in the vibhuti a special divine power
or quality is at work.

The avataras
T hough belief in the avataras is not explicit in the canonical scriptures, it is
part and parcel of the H indu tradition. T h e reason is that it is the vox
populi that proclaims in the course of its history the descent of the avatara
into this world. Hence it is not surprising that the Hindu traditions have
produced a variety of avatara schemes. Of all these, the one of the ten
avataras4 has become classical. T h is is how the modern mystic-philosopher
Aurobindo Ghosh views it:

T h e Hindu procession of the ten Avatars is itself, as it were, a parable of

evolution. First the Fish Avatar, then the amphibious animal between
land and water, then the land animal, then the M an-Lion Avatar,
bridging man and anim al, then man as dwarf, small and undeveloped
and physical but containing in himself the godhead and taking
possession of existence, then the rajasic, sattwic, nirguna Avatars,
leading the human development from the vital rajasic to the sattwic
mental man and again the overmental superman. K rishna, Buddha and
K alki depict the last three stages, the stages of the spiritual development
- K rishna opens the possibility of overmind, Buddha tries to shoot
50 Francis X. D'Sa

beyond to the supreme liberation but that liberation is still negative, not
returning upon earth to complete positively the evolution; K alki is to
correct this by bringing the Kingdom of the D ivine upon earth,
destroying the opposing Asura forces. T h e progression is striking and
unmistakable.5

The avatara doctrine

An avatara scheme like this is significant only within the world of the
avatara belief. T h e entry to this world could be the divine poem
Bhagavadgita, Chapter 4 of which (vv.6-9) contains the locus classicus :
Unborn, imperishable in my own being, and Lord over finite lives,
Still I take as my basis material existence and appear through my own
power.
For whenever right languishes
And unright ascends, I manifest myself.
Age after age I appear to establish the right and true,
So that the good are saved and the evildoers perish.
When a man knows my divine birth and work thus, as they really are,
After this life he is not reborn, but comes to me.
Many people, freed of passion, fear, and anger, full of me and relying on
me,
Have been purified by the fire of wisdom and have come to my
m ansion.6

Any interpretation of the ‘becom ing’ of the divine into the world of space
and time has to take into account the following points. T h e avatara passage
begins with unambiguous and insistent assertions - much more striking in
the Sanskrit original than in the translation - of the unchangeable nature of
the divine. Secondly, the supremacy of the divine is clearly proclaimed.
Th irdly, the unchangeable divine enters the realm of change ( — the
cosmic). Fourthly, he does so on his own. F ifth ly, the occasion for his
manifestation is announced: the decline of dharma and the rise of its
opposite. Sixthly, the purpose and occasion of the divine manifestation
which occurs in every age is the protection of the good, the destruction of
evildoers and the restoration of dharma. Finally, the aim of the avatara
belief is to liberate the believer from rebirth.

The avatara belief: seeing all things in the divine

T h e belief is to be understood in a manner that does justice to the above
considerations, though obviously it can be reduced to them. T h e passage
asserts the birth of the divine within the context of divine immutability and
 Christian Incarnation and Hindu Avatara 81

promises to lead to liberation the one acquainted with this m ystery. T o

know the divine birth and work means freedom from rebirth and entrance
into the divine. A connection is thus made between his perduring presence
and the liberating knowledge of his birth and action. T h ese are in
consonance with divine im m utability.
I f the occasion for the ‘becom ing’ of the avatara is the increase of evil
and the decline of goodness in this world, then this is true of every age. For
of which age could it not be said that evil has taken the upper hand? Is it not
the general belief, especially among ‘good’ people, that the ‘present’ age is
characterized by a progressive decline in the practice of morality? Is it not
our tendency to consider the age we live in as ‘evil’ , and to look back
nostalgically at the past (especially the hoary past) as the ‘golden age’ ? T h is
is true of every age. Hence the statement (4.8) that the divine becomes into
this world ‘age after age’ (i.e. in every age). E very age then is the occasion
for the Absolute to ‘take birth’ in order to ‘work’ for the restoration of
dharm a. T h e question is how in the context of the repeated assertions
about the im m utability of the divine we are to understand his coming.
In the cosmocentric world-view ‘he really becom es’ cannot mean a
historical com ing - because he is always present! H is com ing can only
mean our becom ing aware of the effects of his presence and his power -
especially when everything looks dark and dismal.
T h is point needs some elaboration, since the danger of interpreting it
m erely psychologically is real. K now in g is not what goes on inside the head
of the know er; knowing is becom ing what we already are. We are part of,
not apart from , reality. T h rough knowing we realize this oneness or, better
still, we let this oneness become operative in our lives, albeit only step by
step. Against this background, ‘becoming aware’ means realizing our
oneness with reality.
T h e Hindu experience of the human does not im ply historicity in the
way in which Christian-W estern experience of the last centuries does
because the Hindu understanding of the experience of ‘being-in-the-world’
is such that prakriti (i.e. the mutable), not purusha (the im m utable), is
part and parcel of the world. T h e H indu’s utter lack of interest in any kind
of quest for the historical K rish n a suggests how K rish n a is believed to be
present in the world of space and tim e: he is and operates in the world but
he is not o f the world. M oreover in the cosmocentric tradition the divine is
conceived in terms of the cosmic rather than the personal. T h u s we can say
that K rishna is ; but we cannot say that he is there because his presence is
co-terminous with all that is.
In contrast to the Western historical world-view where presence
connotes historicity, on the Hindu side it is ontological. In the form er,
82 Francis X. D'Sa

ontology is grounded in a historical horizon of understanding; in the

latter history is grounded in an ontological horizon of understanding.
T h e avatara belief highlights the dynamic manner in which divine
presence operates in this w orld; the primary purpose of the belief is not
meant to promote adoration and worship but to provide inspiration and
courage in moments of hopelessness when evil replacing goodness acts
suprem e, and to remind the believer that the divine m ystery remains
always in control of this world and that nothing happens without his
knowledge and consent. T h is belief leaves no room for despair or fatalism.
T h e avatara conception implies that the divine is fully the agent and that
behind that agent there is no other personality to whom agency could be
attributed. An avatara is the divine in the form into which it has
descended. T h e K rishna avatara, for example, is the divine in the form of
the human. Analogous to the distinction in the West between person and
nature, in the Hindu traditions there is the distinction between individual
(j'va) and person (purusha).7 T h is would permit us to state that the
Krishna-avatara is both divine and a fully free human being, though not an
individual in bondage.8 T h is is because in traditional H indu understand­
ing every individual is caught up in the net of rebirth - a thing that cannot
be said of K rishna. He is indeed human, but he transcends the cycle of
birth and rebirth. Here being human does not necessarily imply
historicity; historicity is peculiar only to those who are subject to bondage.
Hence the avatara belief is basically an expression o f the fundam ental
experience o f the pervasive presence of the d iv in e : in this presence both the
human and the cosmic are grounded. T h is explains both the m ultiplicity
and the epochally recurrent pattern of the avataras. T o expect anything
else in the cosmocentric world-view would be to extrapolate from the
anthropocentric world-view characteristics like uniqueness (of the
eph'hapax type).
T h e avatara belief conveys in a dramatic way the fact that the divine is a
constitutive dimension of reality. Evil is the absence of the divine. But the
experience of the absence of the divine is not at all a bad preparation for the
arrival of the divine.

Vibhutis: the divine manifestations

T h ere is another way in which the divine is experienced in the Hindu
traditions and that is known as vibhuti. A vibhuti is the manifestation of
the divine at work in a person (‘ I am Arjuna among the Pandava Princes’)
or thing through a quality (‘ I am the taste in water’) or even a happening (‘ I
am death the destroyer of all’). T h e variety of divine manifestations that is
 Christian Incarnation and Hindu Avatara

part and parcel of a cosmocentric world-view encompasses practically

everything. Though the popular axiom ‘among beings the best or the first
of its kind is a vibhuti’ is not accurate enough, still it has a point. Whatever
is exem plary, outstanding, unique, brilliant, marvellous, conspicuous,
rem arkable, striking, prominent or significant - all this is a vibhuti and is
spoken of in different ways in the Bhagavadgita: ‘All that exists is woven
on me like a web of pearls on thread’ (7 .7 ); ‘ I am the source of everything,
and everything proceeds from me’ ( 10 .7 ) ; ‘ I am the seed of all creatures’
(10 .39 ) and ‘ I stand sustaining this entire universe with a fragment of my
being’ (10 .4 1) .

The vibhuti doctrine

T h e follow ing examples from the Gita could exem plify the doctrine of
the vibhutis.

I am the taste in water . . . the light in the moon and sun, OM resonant
in all sacred lore, the sound in space, valour in men. I am the pure
fragrance in earth, the brilliance in fire, the life in all living creatures, the
penance in ascetics, of strong men I am strength, without the emotion of
desire; in creatures I am the desire that does not impede sacred duty
(Bhagavadgita 7 .8 ,9 ,11 ) .
I am the self abiding in the heart of all creatures; I am their beginning,
their middle and their end. I am Vishnu striding among sun gods, the
radiant sun among lights; I am lightning among wind gods, the moon
among the stars. I am the song in sacred lore; I am Indra, king of the
gods; I am the mind of the senses, the consciousness of creatures . . . I
am golden M eru towering over the mountains . . . I am the ocean of
lakes . . . I am Him alaya, the measure of what endures . . . Among
trees, I am the sacred fig-tree. I am chief of the divine sages, leader of the
celestial musicians, the recluse philosopher among saints . . . among
elephants, the divine king’s m ount; among men, the king . . . I am the
procreative god of love, the king of the snakes . . . of measures, I am
time; I am the lion among wild animals. I am the purifying wind . . .
the flowing river Ganges. I am the beginning, the middle and the end of
creations . . .o f sciences, I am the science of the self . . . I am the vowel
a of the syllabary . . . I am indestructible time, the creator facing
everywhere at once. I am death the destroyer of all, the source of what
will be, the feminine powers: fame, fortune, speech, memory, intellig­
ence, resolve, patience . . . I am the great ritual chant, the metre of
sacred song, the most sacred month in the year, the spring blooming
with flowers . . . I am Krishna among my mighty kinsmen; I am Arjuna
84 Francis X. D'Sa

among the Pandava princes . . . I am the sceptre of rulers . . . I am the

silence of mysteries, what men of knowledge know . . . I am the seed of
all creatures; nothing animate or inanimate could exist without me
(Bhagavadgita 10 .2 0 -3 9 ).9

These examples give us an inkling of some of the things and persons which
are believed to be vibhutis. Taken from the cosmic elements and functions,
from inanimate and animate things of the world, from human beings and
their behaviour, they represent all that humankind holds to be sacred,
significant and secure.

The vibhuti belief: seeing the divine in all things

T h e question is: ‘What does all this mean? What is meant by
manifestation of divine presence?’ If in the avatara belief the divine
presence and its supremacy over all beings is stressed with a view to
fighting in times of trial and tribulation against hopelessness and despair,
the vibhuti belief is a belief for ‘all seasons’ . Everywhere and in everything
the working of the D ivine Presence is to be discerned : not only in the good
and the great, the brave and the beautiful, the proud and the pow erful, but
also in the obvious (like the wind and the water) and the dubious (like dice
and desire). N othing is left out, not even death ‘the destroyer of all’
( IO-34)-
G oing the various kinds of vibhutis, one might be tempted to conclude
that the divine has made an ‘option for the best and the brave, the fair and
the famous’ . T h is would be a grave misreading. What the vibhuti belief
intends to make clear is the opposite: whatever your achievements, your
strengths, your talents and your origin, ‘ I dwell deep in the heart of
everyone; memory, knowledge, and reasoning come from m e; 1 am the
object to be known through all sacred lo re; and I am its knower, the creator
of its final truth’ ( 15 .15 ) -
A vibhuti is not a mere reminder that the divine mystery is at work in
flesh, flower and fruit. It is an invitation to an encounter with the divine
presence in and through the sacramentality of the cosmic dimension of
reality. A vibhuti is, to use a hallowed Christian expression, a sacrament,
and like every sacrament it invites us to cultivate a sacra -mentality vis a vis
this universe.

Conclusion
Belief in the presence of the divine m ystery, whether in the form of avatara
or vibhuti, is a remarkable one. Rem arkable not only because of its
 Christian Incarnation and Hindu Avatara 85

widespread hold on the people of the sub-continent (in spite of the fact that
neither of them is part of the Hindu scriptural canon), but more because of
its potential for social change. T h e actualization of this belief would mean
the discovery of the depth-dim ension both of the human and the cosm ic;
that is to say, it would initiate the dawn of a new world of relationships
where humankind will have a different attitude, a be-attitude (and not a
have-attitude) towards the universe; then the universe, in her turn, will
reveal the source and substance of her richness.

Notes

N .B . For typographical reasons I have unified the transliteration of Sanskrit words

even in the case of titles and quotations.
1. ‘The Purpose of Avatarhood’, Letters on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary
Library 22, Pondicherry 1970, 430.
2. C f. F . X . D ’Sa, Gott, der Dreieine und der All-Ganze. Vorwort zur Begegnung
zwischen Chrislentum und Hinduismus , Theologie Interkulturell, Diisseldorf 1987,
5~78 -
3. C f. P. Hacker, ‘Z u r Entwicklung der Avataralehre’, Wiener Zeitschrift fu r die
Kunde Siidost-Asiens 4, i960, 47-60.
4. From among the different schemes, the ten-avatara scheme is the one which has
won wide acceptance. We have other avatara schemes where the number of avataras
ranges from six to twenty-three (cf. M . Dhavamony, ‘Hindu Incarnations’, Studia
Missionalia 20, 19 7 1, 16 3-8 9).
5. A urobind o,‘Avatarhood’ (n. i),4 0 2 .
6. The translation is from Kees W. Bolle, The Bhagavadgita. A New Translation,
Berkeley, Los Angeles and London 1979.
7. For the sake of clarity one must add that there is a difference in background for the
distinction in the two instances: whereas in the Western tradition its background is
philosophical, in the Hindu tradition it is soteriological.
8. The classical Hindu texts insist that Krishna was We a human; the reason is not to
deny that he was a real human being but to highlight the fact that he stands in a class by
himself; on this backdrop, to be human applies to be in bondage. Here historicity
implies bondage. But this is not true of Krishna, because he is never in bondage.
Misunderstanding this, some non-Hindus conclude that the doctrine of the avatara is a
sort of docetism. Cf. J . Neuner, ‘Das Christus-Mysterium und die indische Lehre von
den Avataras’, Das Konzil von Chalkedon. Geschichte und Gegenwart III, ed.
A. Grillm eier and H. Bacht, Wurzburg 1954, 785-824. In an analogous fashion it is
said of Jesus that he was similar to us in all things except sin. Misinterpreting this, some
could retort that he was really not human, since to be human implies bondage and hence
the capacity to sin !
9. T h e translation is by Barbara Stoler Miller, The Bhagavad-Gita: K iishna’s
Counsel in Time of War, New York and London 1986.