Avatar and Personification

There are some fundamental differences between avatar and personification


Avatar

1) When you say avatar you are assuming that creator of this Universe is separate from the creation and will take some Human form to put things which have gone out of order in his creation.

2) It is also assumed that as long as he is in Human form he will exhibit and confine himself with in the human limitations although there are some exceptions ( Krishna)

above points distinctly point to philosophy and tradition which believe in dualistic existence of atma and paramatma where in atma has a separate existence from paramatma.

swarga and naraka concept ( Garuda Purana) emerge from this line of thinking. these are distinctly vaishnavaite beliefs most of the vaishnava philosophies conform to this. although there are some followers of Vishnu in smartha( advaitha) they are very few.


Personification


1) Personification is nothing but giving shape to which is shapeless, Parvati is Shakti and shakti is sarva vyapi and is present all times and places.. For that shakti parvati is a personfication.

2) Parvati although human( debatable as Himalaya is a mountain) is not bound by human limitations. She still is Parvati and worshiped as such.

3) Sankhya and Advaita other saivaite philosophies don't believe in separate existence of atma and paramatma. According to most of them whole universe is the union of shiva and shakti so the question of avatar does not arise.


so the point is either you believe the first one or you believe the second one and when you compare both you cannot come to any conclusion. i personally believe in second one


PS: there may be some mistakes i would be glad if they are corrected and also i am open for debate on this issue.

Regards
Krishna

Honestly i hv never read any of da puranas.i hv very few knowledge abt dese Gods.

Some comments on what I understand about Avatar vs Personification vs yet another aspect - derivation.

Avatar

1) When I hear avatar, I understand it as a temporary transformation by the deity in question into another form to fix certain things in creation that cannot necessarily be fixed in his original form. This is different from recent serials, which show Vishnu and Lakshmi in Vaikuntha happily witnessing events in the life of Rama or Krishna

2) In the human forms, only one avatar of Vishnu had the limitation of humans - Rama. Vamana had the ability to grow, Parashurama was forbidden from resting on earth after his mission was complete even though he remained immortal, and Krishna had powers not very different from Vishnu.

Ok so when vishnu took da avatars as ram and krishna,he was not dere in vaikunth at all?dat's interesting.Thanks 4 da knowledge,Vrish.😊

@Krishna, good topic 👏 I was going to cover Avatar-rahasya in next update of my OS. @Vrish, as per Devi Puran parvati was divine was aware of her powers, when she was 2 to 3 days old she showed Himavan about her true form including importance of her Mahavidyas, which is known as Parvati-geeta or Bhagavati-geeta. After Kamdev's burning into ashes, Shivji saw her & realised who she is, he asked her to show her form, she had gone to in Daksh's yagya. She showed her Mahakali form (in the show they showed as her Vikaral form) Shivji then praised her with 1000 names. That Mahakali Sahastranaam stotra is given in DP.

Originally posted by: subha2601

Honestly i hv never read any of da puranas.i hv very few knowledge abt dese Gods.

What i hv understood and feel is Avatar is never separate frm Personification.When Ravana was creating havoc on da earth,Lord Vishnu sent a part of himself/his power on da earth.Dat part/power was born as Lord Ram.Same wid Krishna.Krishna too was a power/part of Lord Vishnu.Ram and Krishna were never separate frm Lord Vishnu.I feel Vishnu was very much in vaikunth and watching what his avatars r doing on earth.Similarly,Hanuman and Shiv were also not separate as Hanuman is also called as Rudra avatar.

Dis is what i understand.As i said,i don't hv much knowlwdge abt Gods and puranas like u and meenaxi hv.

@ Red There lies the fundamental difference, when you say " sent to the earth" "watching from vaikunth" there is an assumption the creator is separate from creation. This is not the case with shiva and shakti in any of the traditions. even today's episode stressed that point every thing manifested is a form of shakti and the consciousness which guides which qualifies the raw energy
is Shiva. under such condition there is no scope for avatar. when everything is shiva and shakti where does the question of shiva or shakti coming arise.

In this context we can have only personifications, parvati is saguna rupa of shakti similarly shiva is saguna rupa of parabrahma and not avatars as is the case with Rama/krishna

@vrish parvati was not born human, shakti which drives entire universe can always supersede rules created by her ,that is the reason she exists in that form till today.

if she was "Human" in literal terms then even after one lakh years of penance she would be still bound by her human limitations as is the case with saptarshis etc.

regards
Krishna

Originally posted by: .Vrish.

Thanks Krishna for explaining all this so well. I too tend to believe in the 2nd explanation.

Some comments on what I understand about Avatar vs Personification vs yet another aspect - derivation.

Avatar

1) When I hear avatar, I understand it as a temporary transformation by the deity in question into another form to fix certain things in creation that cannot necessarily be fixed in his original form. This is different from recent serials, which show Vishnu and Lakshmi in Vaikuntha happily witnessing events in the life of Rama or Krishna

2) In the human forms, only one avatar of Vishnu had the limitation of humans - Rama. Vamana had the ability to grow, Parashurama was forbidden from resting on earth after his mission was complete even though he remained immortal, and Krishna had powers not very different from Vishnu.

3) In the first few avatars of Vishnu, he took the temporary forms that he needed to, be it Matsya, Kurma, Mohini, Varaha and Narasimha, quickly did his job and returned. In those incarnations, he was doing nothing more than assuming temporary forms.

Personification

1) Parvati, from what I understand, was not born divine, but attained the powers she did through her penances

2) After her marriage to Shiva, she became as divine and powerful as Adi-Shakti herself

3) Once there, she was capable of invoking various derivative forms of herself, such as Durga and Mahakali

Derivative

In the above case of Vishnu's avatars, once their purpose was served, the avatars were ended and Vishnu resumed operations in Vaikuntha.

In the case of Shiva, though, there were never any avatars created as such, but rather derivatives. Hanuman, for instance, was carved out of one of his limbs. As a result, unlike the Vishnu avatars, Hanuman is immortal, and his presence anywhere does not affect Mahadev's presence anywhere.

@bold we may not believe these things seriously, they might have been later interpolations. If you carefully observe the life of krishna all his human weaknesses have been either explained by some super natural explanation or have been linked to bhakti etc for instance

Krishna left mathura and built a city in dwaraka which was impregnable due to its island status
when he faced kalayavana, this would have been the course for any sensible King against a strong foe but it is explained by some story of kalayavanas boon

of course it does not take away anything in terms of his Divinity but my point was he was bound by his human limitations in some way,other wise he would just send his sudarshana to end kurukshetra war in may be a second.

regards
Krishna

Why u are always in this mode Krishna ji 😆.Athi telusu Nuvvu Veera Shaivagaru (am i right ? 😆)

Originally posted by: vanadhi

Why u are always in this mode Krishna ji 😆.Athi telusu Nuvvu Veera Shaivagaru (am i right ? 😆)

But u are well pointed i accept that.

If Lord Krishna is having all the later Interpolations then ,Lord Shiv too have nah?, each and every scriptures are passed to humans from thousands of guru- Shishya paramparah ,so Its unavoidable .

We all know the story of Dattatreya

That when the Milkmaid crosses the river bare footed ,all the scholars asked her how?

She began to narrate the meaning veda's and human Philosophy .

with the blessings of Dattatreya.

Mean while Dattatreya explains her the & layers or levels of Human Subconscious that a soul has to pass through 7 Eligible births among thousand of jenmas .

Soul will experience the different life style in every birth to understand the essence of philosophy thought there .

From Adivasi ,tribe , sudra , vaishya, Kshatriya , Brahmana ,at last(lakshmi ,parvathi ,saraswathi) Jeevatma 's representation level where they are united to Parambrahma.(I am not laminating any varna system ,i am just stating the knowledge level gained in that level in those days .But now i feel God has opened field to every one so that ,all the willing souls will seek the knowledge easily .)

But these 7 stages will took several births for a soul to be toned .

Its not wrong what ever in vaishnavates ,After realizing the Bakthi bhava only a soul can understand non -dualism,Other wise its utter waste of time in teaching them.

So every thing is in long process , each and every concepts is just a lesson ,If the soul feels satisfies with that ,its keeps on proceeding to the next levels up to level of supreme consciousness.

Liked all the sensible replies .Thanks for the post Krishna Athi telusu Nuvvu Veera Shaivagaru (am i right ? 😆)

Thanks Vanadhi for your reply, you guessed it right . i am blatant shaivaite 😆. but i am never against vaishnavas .

i get incensed when they start preaching their version which is bound to be in favor of vishnu, in forums as though its the correct version. similar thing happened earlier.

personally i respect lord krishna very much, there are always interpolations but my point was he was limited by his human nature otherwise he would finish kurukshetra war in one second.

how can we not like the lord who taught us treasure trove like bhagavatgita.

any way here is a very beautiful song dedicated to lord Krishna in Kannada, one of my favourite

you will enjoy this as you like him very much,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcA4wqpBPLo

Regards
Krishna

Originally posted by: kkr531

Thanks Vanadhi for your reply, you guessed it right . i am blatant shaivaite 😆. but i am never against vaishnavas .

i get incensed when they start preaching their version which is bound to be in favor of vishnu, in forums as though its the correct version. similar thing happened earlier.

personally i respect lord krishna very much, there are always interpolations but my point was he was limited by his human nature otherwise he would finish kurukshetra war in one second.

how can we not like the lord who taught us treasure trove like bhagavatgita.

any way here is a very beautiful song dedicated to lord Krishna in Kannada, one of my favourite

you will enjoy this as you like him very much,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcA4wqpBPLo

Regards
Krishna