Vishnu’s Dashavatara and the Science of Evolution

 

Vishnu’s Dashavatara and the Science of Evolution

In 1859, Charles Darwin published his book ‘On the Origin of Species’. The world called him the father of evolution, the person who had documented this theory. Interestingly, Sri Aurobindo and others had spoken about Vishnu’s ten incarnations and shown that what Darwin had documented in the nineteenth century had been documented much before that, in the Hindu scriptures.

Let me talk about the incarnations.

The first incarnation of Vishnu is Matsya, or the fish. Modern science tells us that life began in water, first as single cells and later as multicellular organisms. The oceans were the only home of life for roughly three billion years. Fish-like vertebrates began appearing and, in a strict biological sense, it can be said that all land vertebrates, including us, descended from a fish. This would be approximately 3.5 billion years ago when the fish-like vertebrates appeared.

Around 385 to 375 million years ago, some lobe-finned fish began developing necks, lungs and wrist-like bones. They began travelling between land and water. Vishnu’s second incarnation, Kurma, or the turtle, was someone, who was at home both on land and water. I feel this Avatar was a turtle, not a tortoise. Tortoises resemble turtles, but they are not aquatic Put a tortoise in water, and it may drown. So, here we have a turtle that is comfortable, leading a life on land and water. One more thing about both tortoises and turtles is that they lay their eggs on land.

Around 252 million years ago, something called the ‘Great Dying’ happened. It is said that around 80 percent of all marine life and about 70 percent of land life was wiped out. After this, life began appearing again. Mammals began appearing about 200 million years ago. They had hair, produced milk and were warm-blooded. Vishnu’s third Avatar was a boar. There is something interesting about a boar. It lives on land, wallows in mud, uses its snout to dig and is a very good swimmer. As the boar, Vishnu is supposed to have lifted the earth from the ocean. Fossils of sea creatures have been found on the Himalayan peaks. I am not saying that an animal actually pushed the earth out. What we have as India today collided with a landmass around 50-60 million years ago. This lifted the Himalayas, which were in the sea. This was not an overnight task and geologists say it took tens of millions of years.

Vishnu’s fourth incarnation was someone who was not fully human. Was this really a figment of imagination? A 40,000-year-old ivory figurine was found, which was given the name, Löwenmensch (‘lion-man’). This incarnation shows the in-between process of evolution. Narasimha is defined by being in between, and evolution itself has no sharp line where one animal ends and ‘human’ begins.

The first humans began evolving around 2.5 million years ago. This, again, is an approximation solely based on fossils found. A 2.5-million-year-old human fossil was classified as Homo habilis. The person was short (about four feet tall) and had a small yet developed brain. Vishnu’s fifth incarnation was Vamana, a dwarf. Vamana was never shown as strong in the texts. He was intelligent and he evolved or developed because he began growing.

Approximately 1.5 million years ago, what we know as a human, Homo erectus, evolved. They were tall, between 5-6 feet in height, were able to control fire and used axes to cut and also to dig. Vishnu’s sixth incarnation, Parashurama, was a human who was intelligent and could fight when needed. This was the hunter-gatherer human who had learnt to shape the world with tools and fire.

True humans, Homo sapiens, are said to have started evolving around 300,000 years ago. The human here wore jewellery. They were intelligent and they cared for the weak and the old. Their brains had evolved and had become bigger and scientists believe that this human was able to manage complex social relationships. This is where we see Vishnu’s seventh incarnation, Rama.

Farming began around 12,000 years ago. Humans evolved too. The ability of adults to digest milk (lactase persistence) came about. They built cities, traded and wrote. They knew language, law, mathematics and philosophy. Vishnu’s eighth Avatar (Krishna or Balarama according to different sources) was someone who worked with cows, farmed (Balarama carries a plough) and was philosophical (Krishna’s strategy and philosophy).

The period from around 800 to 200 BCE is called the ‘Axial Age’. During this period, questions were being asked about suffering, the self and the good life. This is where Buddha, the ninth Avatar, fits in.

Human evolution has not stopped. The last Avatar of Vishnu, Kalki, reminds us that the story is unfinished and that the next chapter is yet to be written.

One thing that we need to note is that every one of these is inside us. As humans, our embryos have pharyngeal arches, which in fish become gills and in us become parts of the jaw and throat. Our arms have the same bone pattern as a lobe-fin: one bone, then two, then a cluster of wrist bones, then digits. The bones of our middle ear are said to have been reptilian jawbones, long ago. We grow hair, produce milk and are warm blooded. Vishnu may have been present in every stage of the evolutionary process, but every stage of it is still present in us.

Please note: this post is about Vishnu’s ten Avatars and its similarities with the theory of evolution. Dashavatara is not a science textbook. It is about the sequence, which is to be noted. The sequence runs from water to land, animal to human, instinct to intelligence and, finally, self-reflection. We see the divine in a fish, a turtle and a boar, not only in kings and rishis, and our texts speak of creation and that all life on this planet is somehow connected.