History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c37.47

v3.c37.47

In medieval and modern times Viṣṇu has been deemed to have descended to earth ten times to preserve the world and its culture. A brief account of the development of this theory will not be out of place here. The ten well-known *avatāras* are Matsya (fish), Kūrma (tortoise), Varāha (boar), Narasiṁha (man-lion), Vāmana (dwarf), Paraśurāma, Rāma, Kṛṣṇa, Buddha and Kalkin. There are faint glimmerings of the theory of avatāras and of these forms even in the earliest Vedic Literature. In Ṛg. VIII. 17. 13¹⁷¹³ it is said that Indra was the grandson of the sage Śṛṅgavṛṣa. This may be interpreted as meaning that Indra was supposed to have descended on the earth in a human form. In Ṛg. IV. 26. 1 the sage Vāmadeva exclaims¹⁷¹⁴ 'I was Manu and I was also the Sun'. This is referred to in the Bṛ. Up. I. 4. 10 and is often relied upon in support of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. It may be capable of that interpretation, but if that is not accepted it will at least tend to support the proposition that the Vedic sage thought that the Sun could be born on the earth as a human being (i. e. there was an avatāra of the Sun). There is another sense in which this passage of the Ṛg and that of the Bṛ. Up. are understood in the Vedāntasūtra I. 1. 30 viz. that Vāmadeva had realized that his soul was non-different from the Supreme Soul, Brahma. The elements of the avatāra of Matsya are probably suggested by the story of Manu who was saved from a flood by a great horned fish to whose horn Manu tied the rope of his ship when the flood rose. Vide Śat. Bṛ. I. 8. 1. 1-6 (S. B. E. vol. 12, pp. 216-218).¹⁷¹⁵