Avatars - Rama, Krishna, ..

Avatarvad is the belief that the one, supreme God takes a human or other forms to liberate countless jivas from material bondage and the cycles of birth and death. Avatar liberally means 'one who descends'. The approximate English word is incarnation. It does not exactly mean avatar because Hindus believe that though God himself takes a human or living forms and shows all the physical traits of living beings, he is totally divine. Even thought in a human or any other actions are neither similar to thouse of humans nor other living beings. God's body and his actions are absolutely divine and redemptory. One may ask why God has to descend as an avatar? Can be not liberate souls from his divine abode using his infinite powers? The answer is yes he can. The two main reasons why he incarnate in human and other forms are 1) To fulfill the wishes and accept the love and devotion of his devotees and countless more who are spiritually inclined and 2) To destroy adharma or evil on earth: 'Yada Yada hi dharmasya....' In Srimad Bhagavatham episode of 'Gajendra Mokasam', Sri Maha Vishnu flies down himself to save the gajendra from the cluthes of crocdile. If god wishes, just by his sankalpa he could have killed the crocodile, but the gajendra wished for bhagwan's darshan and hence he came down running to save his devotee. In Mahabharata during the Dhraupati vastrapaharan, Draupadhi did not request for Krishna's dharshan, but requested to save her dignity and hence bhagwan gave her what she asked for. It's all in what the devotees asks with a pure heart and bhagwan fulfills. The first reason allows devotees to develop deep bonds of love and glory through their personal companionship and association with God. Eventually this liberated them from the bondage of maya. In Hindusim there are 24 main avatars, of which ten(Dashavatar) are the principal ones: 1.Matsya(fish) 2.Kurma(tortoise) 3.Varah(boar) 4.Nrusimha(man-lion) 5.Vaman(Dwarf) 6.Parshuram 7.Ram 8.Krishna 9.Buddha 10.Kalki(future) Philosophically there is a reason on the order of avatars, which we'll post it in the following posts. Hari Om.