Dasavatharam - Its message to Humanity

Dasavatharam meaning The Ten Incarnations. No we are not talking about the movie, but the legend that has been passed down for generations till date. The legend about the 10 incarnations of Lord Vishnu to save the life and humanity on earth from the monstrous demons and ruthless giants. This might sound like this is for the persons interested in mythology. But to me, these avatarams or avatars are not just legends, they carry a message that is so indepth and subtle. The subtlety of the message is that it might superfically seem to convey that God is here to save people in trouble, but actually, it contains the message about the origin and the evolution of life on the planet that lead to the humans. The avatarams are not just incarnations but has to be construed as transformations that life forms took in the planet over time. The avatarams are

1. Macha Avataram
2. Koorma Avataram
3. Varaaga Avataram
4. Narshima Avataram
5. Vamaana Avataram
6. Parasurama Avataram
7. Rama Avataram
8. Balarama Avataram
9. Krishna Avataram
10. Kalki Avataram

The Macha Avataram is the Fish Avataram, Macha means fish. So life on the planet start from aquatic creatures like fish and so on that live solely on water. This also means that life existed in the planet even before fish took form, so the major transformation is a complex living being, that had a skeleton and a spine that formed the basis of evolution, Vertebrae and Invertebrae.

The Koorma Avataram means The Turtle Avataram, Koorma means turtle. The next transformation is of course the amphibian, that was able to live in both land and water. This was a great change that became the beginning of diverse life forms on earth

The Varaaga Avataram mean The Boar Avataram, Varaaga means boar. This evolution is about the beings that got totally transformed into land living creatures, so that their aquatic past got erased completely from their creation. These are the primitive herbivores that lived on eating plants.

The Narashima Avataram means the Human Lion. This is about the species that is a hybrid from of the previous evolution, but that which created the Predator-Prey relationships. These creatures started hunting other creatures for their living

The Vaamana Avataram means a short human Avataram. This was a missing link in the evolution chain. They were mythological creatures, until scientists found the Hobbits, that form part of the early human ancestry. More about Hobbits, here and here.

The Parasurama Avataram is the avataram depicted as a man carrying an axe to take revenge of demon ancestry. This avataram indicates the early primitive humans using primitive tools like axe, spears. Rather the old stone age and the new stone age.

The Rama Avataram, depicts a more civilised human with better tools like bow and the arrow and other mechanical tools to make life easy. This is the beginning of the societal nature of living of humans, that has the social welfare of their groups and clans as the prime motive.

The Balarama Avataram, is the next avataram, depicted as a human carrying a plough. This indicates that advancement of humans into cultivating their own food for their living. Until then humans had been hunting and eating fruits from trees until this transformation, where the humans learnt how to cultivate their own food.

The Krishna Avataram is the avataram that is more concentrated over diplomacy, art of war, conquests and where humans started to use their brains to invade and conquer territories. More of industrial and organised growth was in this transformation.

The Kalki Avataram, the most modern of Avataram. People say that this avataram is yet to happen. And this avataram is where humanity is heading towards. The avataram is depicted as a human on a horse with a sword and other costumes of war that is considered to be more modern. We do not know how that form is going to be in reality. Time has to tell the answers.

All these avatarams have a legend behind them, when Lord Vishnu saves the world. The motive of the aforesaid explanations are not to dispute that those legends are false. But to explain that they contain a hidden message along with all the virtues that the legends about the Dasavatarams have. I believe that those legends have happend and there are proofs that exist even today about the happenings mentioned in the legend like the bridge to Sri Lanka (The Rama Avataram), the Kurukshetra war (Krishna Avataram).

Our ancestors have been so intelligent enough that they were able to including the message about the evolution of life, in the form of legends. The rigorous statements and discoveries might fade away over time because all might not be able to understand what those discoveries state. But these legends and fables will convey this hidden message and the legend for generations to come without any change and will not fade away over time.

More to come, until then...