Dasavataras

By: Ananda Tirtha Dasa

In Sanskrit, dasa means ten, and avatara means descent, or incarnation. The ten principal incarnations of Krishna are collectively known as the Dasavataras. In the Bhagavad-gita (4.8), Krishna gives the reasons He descends to this world: "To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium after millennium."

The Dasavataras are as follows:

Matsya--the fish incarnation. He appeared in order to rescue the Vedas from the waters of devastation.

Kurma--the tortoise. He acted as a support for the mountain used in the pastime of churning the ocean.

Varaha--the boar. He picked up the earth and killed the demon Hiranyaksha.

Narasimha--the half-man, half-lion incarnation. He appeared in order to save His young devotee Prahlada.

Vamana--the dwarf. He tricked the demon king Bali into relinquishing control of the universe.

Parashurama--the warrior incarnation. He wiped out twenty-one generations of impious kings.

Ramachandra--the perfect king, hero of the Ramayana. He rescued his wife, Sita, from the clutches of the demon Ravana.

Balarama--Krishna's original expansion. He incarnated on earth along with Krishna and performed many wonderful pastimes.

Buddha--the preacher of nonviolence. His mission was to stop the improper slaughter of animals in sacrifices.

Kalki--the destroyer. He will incarnate to wipe out the degraded population at the end of this age, the age of Kali or quarrel.

The first nine of these incarnations have already appeared. The tenth, Kalki, is scheduled to appear at the end of this age, about 427,000 years from now. Some historians hold that Buddha is not one of the ten incarnations. But the followers of the Vedic culture point out that the appearance of Lord Buddha is mentioned in Vedic scriptures predating Buddha by centuries.