Followers of Hindu religion and culture do not require any introduction to this ancient treatise of mythology that enumerates and glorifies the 'ten' incarnations of the Lord Vishnu. For the benefit of those that are willing to bear with a repetition, these are:
The first 3 avatars deal with the process of creation in some form or the other. If the Lord incarnated as a fish to save our world from deluge, He is believed to have manifested as a Boar to aid creation of the world again.
The rest of the incarnations are the saga of triumph of good over evil with divine intervention of the Vishnu avatars
If Kurma avatara intervenes between Matsya and the Varaha avatara, what happened to the boat that set sail on the 'horn' of the Matsya. Did all creation on that boat wait for that yuga or manvantara when the Varaha will manifest itself.
Kurma avatara is perhaps the shortest of the Dashavataras. This avatara is more the description of a recipe to bring forth the nectar of immortality and a lesson that more than mountains of faith need to be moved to churn the ocean out of its salinity than a demonstration of divine heroism whether of the human or the aquatic kind. The mighty Mandara had to be given the long rope of Vasuki or was it the Adisesha, to mine the riches of a stubborn sea. Here the Gods and the demons, not faith, not just moved a mountain but used it as a blender. One may think it a mystery why inspite of the Gods getting almost all the nectar to themselves, still had no deliverance from the menace of the demons. Mysterious indeed are the ways of divinity! The menace of their evil cousins returned to torment the Gods in the yuga of the Varaha avatara. What happened to the 'amrit' that the Gods partook of in the yuga of the Kurma. What a strange nectar that only proffers immortality, but no vigor or power to Gods and is this one of the many slips between the lip and the cup of nectar. From a turtle, Vishnu changed to the damsel Mohini to avert the calamity of the nectar falling into the hands of demonic devils, the asuras and used her seduction and sleight of hand to deny the asuras their share of the nectar. Here it was the Gods that reneged on their promise of sharing the nectar. It is must be no surprise that the dictum of 'anything is fair in love and war' prevailed much before the Kaliyuga, where the love of immortality is engaged in the war with the demons.
It is not clear why Mohini is not recognized as an 'official' avatar of Vishnu. Maybe because it is a woman at best and a seductress at the worst. Did she bring on further ignominy to the good name of Vishnu avatars when she seduced Shiva. But was that not to beget Ayappa, the slayer of Mahishi?
What a tangled web of 'crime and punishment' the world of avatars weave?. We are also told to believe that Mahishi is the wife of Mahishasura who was vanquished and killed by Durga.
P.S: I have slightly modified the line on Mohini 'avatar' that attracted controversy as a purported misstatement of original scriptural record. To add a further disclaimer, I do not claim that even with the modification, it may set the record right on this being an accurate reading of the status of Mohini in the Vishnu avatar pantheon. My question or mocking doubt on Mohini is my opinion, straight and simple, that Mohini is not really a part of the Vishnu Dashavatara and wondering aloud why so. I am not disputing that Bhagavata Purana is listing Mohini as an avatara and that there are 16 avataras of Vishnu as against the popular conception of 10 avataras. The title of the post itself mentions Dashavatara (10 incarnations) and also the questions are speculative and meant to mock religious narrative and there is no attempt at any historical revisionism, . I have heard in the past from the religiously inclined that characters like Mohini are not incarnations (Avataras) but emanations, which apparently is interpreted by them as transient transformations for limited missions, while avataras are re-births.
- Matsya Avatara (Fish)
- Kurma Avatara (Turtle)
- Varaha Avatara (Boar)
- Narsimha Avatara (Man-Lion)
- Vamana Avatara (Dwarf or Midget)
- Parashurama (Axe-wielding Brahmin warrior)
- Rama (King of Ayodhya)
- Krishna (Bard of the Baghavad Gita)
- Balarama (Krishna's sibling)
- Kalki (Yet to manifested Super-hero)
The first 3 avatars deal with the process of creation in some form or the other. If the Lord incarnated as a fish to save our world from deluge, He is believed to have manifested as a Boar to aid creation of the world again.
The rest of the incarnations are the saga of triumph of good over evil with divine intervention of the Vishnu avatars
If Kurma avatara intervenes between Matsya and the Varaha avatara, what happened to the boat that set sail on the 'horn' of the Matsya. Did all creation on that boat wait for that yuga or manvantara when the Varaha will manifest itself.
Kurma avatara is perhaps the shortest of the Dashavataras. This avatara is more the description of a recipe to bring forth the nectar of immortality and a lesson that more than mountains of faith need to be moved to churn the ocean out of its salinity than a demonstration of divine heroism whether of the human or the aquatic kind. The mighty Mandara had to be given the long rope of Vasuki or was it the Adisesha, to mine the riches of a stubborn sea. Here the Gods and the demons, not faith, not just moved a mountain but used it as a blender. One may think it a mystery why inspite of the Gods getting almost all the nectar to themselves, still had no deliverance from the menace of the demons. Mysterious indeed are the ways of divinity! The menace of their evil cousins returned to torment the Gods in the yuga of the Varaha avatara. What happened to the 'amrit' that the Gods partook of in the yuga of the Kurma. What a strange nectar that only proffers immortality, but no vigor or power to Gods and is this one of the many slips between the lip and the cup of nectar. From a turtle, Vishnu changed to the damsel Mohini to avert the calamity of the nectar falling into the hands of demonic devils, the asuras and used her seduction and sleight of hand to deny the asuras their share of the nectar. Here it was the Gods that reneged on their promise of sharing the nectar. It is must be no surprise that the dictum of 'anything is fair in love and war' prevailed much before the Kaliyuga, where the love of immortality is engaged in the war with the demons.
It is not clear why Mohini is not recognized as an 'official' avatar of Vishnu. Maybe because it is a woman at best and a seductress at the worst. Did she bring on further ignominy to the good name of Vishnu avatars when she seduced Shiva. But was that not to beget Ayappa, the slayer of Mahishi?
What a tangled web of 'crime and punishment' the world of avatars weave?. We are also told to believe that Mahishi is the wife of Mahishasura who was vanquished and killed by Durga.
P.S: I have slightly modified the line on Mohini 'avatar' that attracted controversy as a purported misstatement of original scriptural record. To add a further disclaimer, I do not claim that even with the modification, it may set the record right on this being an accurate reading of the status of Mohini in the Vishnu avatar pantheon. My question or mocking doubt on Mohini is my opinion, straight and simple, that Mohini is not really a part of the Vishnu Dashavatara and wondering aloud why so. I am not disputing that Bhagavata Purana is listing Mohini as an avatara and that there are 16 avataras of Vishnu as against the popular conception of 10 avataras. The title of the post itself mentions Dashavatara (10 incarnations) and also the questions are speculative and meant to mock religious narrative and there is no attempt at any historical revisionism, . I have heard in the past from the religiously inclined that characters like Mohini are not incarnations (Avataras) but emanations, which apparently is interpreted by them as transient transformations for limited missions, while avataras are re-births.
mohini is avatar in bhagavata purana
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar#Other_Vaishnava_avatars
Thanks for the comment. I am aware that some Vaishnava Puranas list 16 Avatars of Vishnu as against the regular 10.
ReplyDeleteThe point of the post was not list out all possible incarnations of the Avaratic Vishnu, but to voice doubt and skepticism at the whole Puranic charade of avataras
"It is not clear why Mohini is not an avatar of Vishnu. Maybe because it is a woman at best and a seductress at the worst."
ReplyDeleteThen why do you say this?
It's cause he didn't know any better, and when presented with evidence that he's wrong, is embarrassed to admit it. He's wrong, move on.
DeleteI have already replied to this point...Various Puranas do not agree among themselves on a definitive list of Vishnu Avatars. Which only goes to establish the fictional nature of this whole avatar business.
DeleteThere is no right or wrong about this. My posts are not an academic research in to the contents of Puranas. Also I do not accept the Puranas as authoritative of anything.
Anonymous trolls like these who know no better and only want to do a chest-thumping of their Hindu irrationalities, do not get to decide who is right and wrong.
You are most welcome to move on, since you are not anyway contributing anything substantive here.
You don't seem to understand your own sentences.
DeleteRanganath's Claim: Mohini was not included in the avatara list because she's a woman.
Above Claim: Mohini was included in the avatara list, rendering the above claim invalid.
Ranganath's Response: ???
Dignify me with a response to this that doesn't skirt around the topic and I will leave. Forever. Scout's honor.
DeleteMy Dear Fellow Anonymous,
DeleteGreetings! I stumbled upon this blog recently and have been reading the comment trails with a certain interest. That being said, I would urge you to continue your conversations elsewhere, such as on the Nirmukta forums. I think your time will be better spent there. I myself have recently had a fruitful discussion here with Arvind Iyer and Captain Mandrake on the Nirmukta forums about the problems of differentiating between historical and mythological revisionism in India, with special focus on India.
From what I can tell-- both on Nirmukta comment trails and on this blog-- is that Ranganath tends to jump to the immediate conclusion that anyone who disagrees with him in a substantial manner is automatically a "troll," "Hindu apologist," "Hindutvadi," and so on. He is a practitioner of McCarthyism at its finest. I can tell why this has probably been irritating to you.
I wish that he would cease this tendency. Regarding this whole Dasavathara thing-- you're right. He asserts that Mohini was not included because she was a woman. But the first commenter here immediately proved him wrong with a counterexample. For some reason, he seems to impute "apologist" views to the commenter for this. It is illogical.
His knowledge on ancient India seems to be quote slim as well, and his sources dubious. None of the works he consults are academic works. He relies on polemical books such as one by VR Narla which contain very little academic material. More importantly, when confronted with academic material-- such as one Ashoka did on a Nirmukta comment trail-- he brushes it away and accuses the person who offered the material of Hindutva sympathies!
It is symptomatic of the fact that so many people don't seem to understand that South Asian Studies (emphatically NOT Indology) is a professional field that one must study. You must have seen the infamous Reza Aslan interview by now. Ranganath is like Lauren Green of the interview-- he doesn't seem to be aware of history as an academic discipline or of recent works in history. How can you begin to talk about Indian philosophy when you don't know who Jonardon Ganeri, Bimal Krishna Matilal, and SN Dasgupta are? Or of Dharmasastra when you haven't heard of Patrick Olivelle? It's one thing to be ignorant of the great amount of work that's happened since Edward Said in South Asian Studies, but to brush them away when confronted with them is like being a Flat-Earther.
So, Anonymous, you should learn that Nirmukta is a hit or miss community. There are brilliant people in it like Captain Mandrake and Arvind Iyer. There are also crackpots like Prabhakar Kamath and Ranganath here, who clearly don't know what they're talking about. You seem to be one of the former, and I urge you to contribute your talents to tilt the scales in Nirmukta away from the Glenn Becks.
Best,
Sachin
Thank you, Sachin... I will surely check Nirmukta out.
DeleteRichard Dawkins once noted that science is under assault from two forces-- religion on the right, and postmodernism on the left.
Similarly, freethought is also under assault from religion on the right and pompous idiots who can't reason and yet ally themselves with the left! The best way to fight for reason is to engage fools like this in their own home territories and keep reason on record.