Concept of Avatar hood

Aum Sairam

In Shri Bhagavad-Gita Lord Sri Krishna declares:

"Yada Yada Hi Dharmasya Glanirbhavathi Bharatha Abhyudhanamadharmasya Thadathmanam Srujamyaham"
"Parithranaya Sadhunam Vinashayacha Dhushkrutham Dharmasamsthapanarthaya Sambhavami Yuge Yuge"

Whenever there is decline of Righteousness and rise of evil, the Lord incarnates from time to time to uphold Righteousness, to protect the Virtuous and to uproot evil. The avatar appears whenever the world is passing through a spiritual and moral crisis. The avatar comes in order to uphold dharma and to reveal the next evolutionary step in creation. It is easy to see how the modern world, through its moral regress and decline of values, is ripe for avatars.

One may ask why should the Lord Himself Incarnate? Why should he not set about the task of restoring Dharma through the many minor Gods that he has at His command? Emperor Akbar himself posed this question before the courtiers, for, he laughed at the Hindu idea of the Formless adopting Form and descending into the world, as an Avatar to save Dharma. Tansen asked for a week's time and got it granted by His imperial majesty. A few days later, when he was in the pleasure boat of the emperor, sailing across the lake with his family, Tansen threw overboard a doll made to look like the emperor's little son, crying at the same time, "Oh, the prince has fallen into the water!" Hearing this, the emperor jumped into the lake to rescue his son.


Tansen then disclosed that it was only a doll and that the son was safe. He allayed the anger of Emperor Akbar by explaining that he had perforce to enact this drama, in order to demonstrate the truth of the Hindu belief that God takes human form Himself, to save Dharma, without commissioning some other entity to carry out that task. Dharma is like the son, God loves it so dearly. Emperor Akbar could have ordered one among the many personnel he had on board, to jump in and rescue his son: but, his affection was so great and the urgency so acute that the emperor himself plunged into the lake, to pull out the "son". The decline in Dharma is so acute a tragedy, the intensity of affection that the Lord has for good men is so great, that He Himself comes.

Allah Malik