Avatâras. Annie Besant
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Avatâras / Four lectures delivered at the twenty-fourth anniversary / meeting of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, / December, 1899
First Lecture
Brothers: – Every time that we come here together to study the fundamental truths of all religions, I cannot but feel how vast is the subject, how small the expounder, how mighty the horizon that opens before our thoughts, how narrow the words which strive to sketch it for your eyes. Year after year we meet, time after time we strive to fathom some of those great mysteries of life, of the Self, which form the only subject really worthy of the profoundest thought of man. All else is passing; all else is transient; all else is but the toy of a moment. Fame and power, wealth and science – all that is in this world below is as nothing beside the grandeur of the Eternal Self in the universe and in man, one in all His manifold manifestations, marvellous and beautiful in every form that He puts forth. And this year, of all the manifestations of the Supreme, we are going to dare to study the holiest of the holiest, those manifestations of God in the world in which He shows Himself as divine, coming to help the world that He has made, shining forth in His essential nature, the form but a thin film which scarce veils the Divinity from our eyes. How then shall we venture to approach it, how shall we dare to study it, save with deepest reverence, with profoundest humility; for if there needs for the study of His works patience, reverence and humbleness of heart, what when we study Him whose works but partially reveal Him, when we try to understand what is meant by an Avatâra, what is the meaning, what the purpose of such a revelation?
Our President has truly said that in all the faiths of the world there is belief in such manifestations, and that ancient maxim as to truth – that which is as the hall mark on the silver showing that the metal is pure – that ancient maxim is here valid, that whatever has been believed everywhere, whatever has been believed at every time, and by every one, that is true, that is reality. Religions quarrel over many details; men dispute over many propositions; but where human heart and human voice speak a single word, there you have the mark of truth, there you have the sign of spiritual reality. But in dealing with the subject one difficulty faces us, faces you as hearers, faces myself as speaker. In every religion in modern times truth is shorn of her full proportions; the intellect alone cannot grasp the many aspects of the one truth. So we have school after school, philosophy after philosophy, each one showing an aspect of truth, and ignoring, or even denying, the other aspects which are equally true. Nor is this all; as the age in which we are passes on from century to century, from millennium to millennium, knowledge becomes dimmer, spiritual insight becomes rarer, those who repeat far out-number those who know; and those who speak with clear vision of the spiritual verity are lost amidst the crowds, who only hold traditions whose origin they fail to understand. The priest and the prophet, to use two well-known words, have ever in later times come into conflict one with the other. The priest carries on the traditions of antiquity; too often he has lost the knowledge that made them real. The prophet – coming forth from time to time with the divine word hot as fire on his lips – speaks out the ancient truth and illuminates tradition. But they who cling to the words of tradition are apt to be blinded by the light of the fire and to call out "heretic" against the one who speaks the truth that they have lost. Therefore, in religion after religion, when some great teacher has arisen, there have been opposition, clamour, rejection, because the truth he spoke was too mighty to be narrowed within the limits of half-blinded men. And in such a subject as we are to study to-day, certain grooves have been made, certain ruts as it were, in which the human mind is running, and I know that in laying before you the occult truth, I must needs, at some points, come into clash with details of a tradition that is rather repeated by memory than either understood or the truths beneath it grasped. Pardon me then, my brothers, if in a speech on this great topic I should sometimes come athwart some of the dividing lines of different schools of Hindu thought; I may not, I dare not, narrow the truth I have learnt, to suit the limitations that have grown up by the ignorance of ages, nor make that which is the spiritual verity conform to the empty traditions that are left in the faiths of the world. By the duty laid upon me by the Master that I serve, by the truth that He has bidden me speak in the ears of men of all the faiths that are in this modern world; by these I must tell you what is true, no matter whether or not you agree with it for the moment; for the truth that is spoken wins submission afterwards, if not at the moment; and any one who speaks of the Ṛishis of antiquity must speak the truths that they taught in their days, and not repeat the mere commonplaces of commentators of modern times and the petty orthodoxies that ring us in on every side and divide man from man.
I propose in order to simplify this great subject to divide it under certain heads. I propose first to remind you of the two great divisions recognised by all who have thought on the subject; then to take up especially, for this morning, the question, "What is an Avatâra?" To-morrow we shall put and strive to answer, partly at least, the question, "Who is the source of Avatâras?" Then later we shall take up special Avatâras both of the kosmos and of human races. Thus I hope to place before you a clear, definite succession of ideas on this great subject, not asking you to believe them because I speak them, not asking you to accept them because I utter them. Your reason is the bar to which every truth must come which is true for you; and you err deeply, almost fatally, if you let the voice of authority impose itself where you do not answer to the speaking. Every truth is only true to you as you see it, and as it illuminates the mind; and truth however true is not yet truth for you, unless your heart opens out to receive it, as the flower opens out its heart to receive the rays of the morning sun.
First, then, let us take a statement that men of every religion will accept. Divine manifestations of a special kind take place from time to time as the need arises for their appearance; and these special manifestations are marked out from the universal manifestation of God in His kosmos; for never forget that in the lowest creature that crawls the earth I'shvara is present as in the highest Deva. But there are certain special manifestations marked out from this general self-revelation in the kosmos, and it is these special manifestations which are called forth by special needs. Two words especially have been used in Hinduism, marking a certain distinction in the nature of the manifestation – one the word "Avatâra," the other the word "A´vesha." Only for a moment need we stop on the meaning of the words, important to us because the literal meaning of the words points to the fundamental difference between the two. The word "Avatâra," as you know, has as its root "tṛi," passing over, and with the prefix which is added, the "ava," you get the idea of descent, one who descends. That is the literal meaning of the word. The other word has as its root "viṣh," permeating, penetrating, pervading, and you have there the thought of something which is permeated or penetrated. So that while in the one case, Avatâra, there is the thought of a descent from above, from I´shvara to man or animal; in the other, there is rather the idea of an entity already existing who is influenced, permeated, pervaded by the divine power, specially illuminated as it were. And thus we have a kind of intermediate step, if one may say so, between the divine manifestation in the Avatâra and in the kosmos – the partial divine manifestation in one who is permeated by the influence of the Supreme, or of some other being who practically dominates the individual, the Ego who is thus permeated.
Now what are the occasions which lead to these great manifestations? None can speak with mightier authority on this point than He who came Himself as an Avatâra just before the beginning of our own age, the Divine Lord Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa Himself. Turn to that marvellous poem, the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, to the fourth Adhyâya, Shlokas 7 and 8; there He tells us what draws Him forth to birth into His world in the manifested form of the Supreme:
[Sanskrit:
yadA yadAhidharmasya GlAnirBavati BArata |
aByutthAnamadharmasya tadAtmAnaM sRujAmyaham ||
paritrANAya sAdhUnAm vinAsAyacaduShkRutAm ||
dharmasaMsdhApanArthAya saMBavAmi yuge yuge ||]
"When Dharma, – righteousness, law – decays, when Adharma – unrighteousness, lawlessness – is exalted, then I Myself come forth: for the protection of the good, for the destruction of the evil, for the establishing firmly of Dharma, I am born from age to age." That is what He tells us of the coming forth of the Avatâra. That is, the needs of His world call upon Him to manifest Himself in His