Dear Sir,
Its true that we don't come across vishnu avataras in veda as often as agni and Indra. But my grandfather ( who studied rig and yajur in rajaveda paatashala in kumbakonam) told me that the vedas are eternal and constituted enormous verses. In kaliyuga , as the power of people came down vyasa divide the veda into 4 parts and shortened it. Moreover in satya yuga people were meditating on almighty god and were having the personal visualization of the almighty and were discovering the various forms of almighty on their own. But in kali yuga as the power and concentration of the people have decreased people are given the info of all forms of almighty , its like a readymade food.
You just have to meditate on a certain form ( which is dhyana shloka given before every mantra japa) to discover him.
Dear Shri Hariraghavendra,
You say, "Its true that we don't come across vishnu avataras in veda as often as agni and Indra". To my limited knowledge, the concept of avatāra itself does not appear in ṛgveda. viṣṇu is picturized as a சிங்கிடி (śiṅkiḍi) or sidekick of indra in ṛgveda. With due respects to your grandfather, may I humbly submit that he belonged to a generation of brahmins who had a very different world view from what is common amongst the generality of Brahmins of today. They (the brahmins of old) believed that the vedas were revealed by the Supreme God to some ṛṣis who had supernatural powers to decipher, understand and express in vedic Sanskrit, whatever was so revealed by the Supreme Power. Naturally, therefore, they were very sure that the vedas say are eternal truths and doubting or questioning the vedas is blasphemy of the worst order.
Today, however, we live in different times, different social set-up and governmental system; even the notion of castes, untouchability, ritual purity or the notion of மடி as in Tamil are all on their way out and probably illegal also. Hence there will be questioning of many of the pronouncements contained in our scriptures. As an example which comes to my mind immediately, the śatapatha brāhmaṇa says that water comes out of heat; agnerāpaḥ| apbhyaḥ pṛthivī| pṛthivyā oṣadhayaḥ |oṣadhībhyo:'nnaṃ| annād puruṣa:| thus goes the Upanishad and the first statement echoes the brāhmaṇa. Now, the brāhmaṇa comes to this major discovery, in its own words because "when the body gets heated, it perspires and produces water. So, all water must be produced by the action of heat." When one finds such highly astounding arguments, one is likely to examine the various other such grandiose claims propounded in the said brāhmaṇa as
also our other scriptures, is it not? Because our ancient people up till your grandfather's times believed that "in satya yuga people were meditating on almighty god and were having the personal visualization of the almighty and were discovering the various forms of almighty on their own", and many did not even know enough of Sanskrit to analyze and question, nor did they have the education in modern science required for such doubting and questioning, hindu scriptures ruled their minds. But such a condition cannot be expected in future, and only propositions in our scriptures and beliefs of the old people which will be able to successfully pass the critical scrutiny of modern science will appeal to the younger generation, IMHO.
Statements like "But in kali yuga as the power and concentration of the people have decreased people are given the info of all forms of almighty , its like a readymade food.
You just have to meditate on a certain form ( which is dhyana shloka given before every mantra japa) to discover him." etc., can at best be beliefs only, because we have no proof till now about the yuga cycles, whether meditating on a form of deity as per the dhyānaśloka will make him reveal his form to us, etc. It is rather more possible that people at one time imagined GOD according to their fancies and imaginations and worshipped these different deities. After the introduction of advaita philosophy all these various deities were stated to be forms of the Brahman (which is the only reality and hence the Supreme Godhead
according to advaita) — and this is what is possibly hagiographed as ṣaṇmatasthāpanam by Sankara — and from then onwards the "Almighty taking up the form in which he is worshipped" became the fashionable notion IMO. But if a person strongly thinks most of the time about a God whom he picturises as brinjal, will we be comfortable to assert that the Almighty will reveal Himself to that devotee in the form of a Brinjal?
Again take a look at any of the popular dhyānaślokas. I give below the dhyānaśloka for vīragaṇapati:
atha vIragaNapatidhyAnaM || mudgalapurANE ||
bhEtALashaktisharakAr^mukacakraKaDga |
KaTvAMgamudgaragadAMkushanAgapAshAn |
shUlaM ca kuMtaparashuM dhvajamudvahaMtaM |
vIraM gaNEshamaruNaM satataM smarAmi ||4 || rakatavarNaH
"Armed with Bhetala, the weapon of power(shakti), arrow, bow, wheel(Chakra or discus), sword, club, hammer, mace, hook, nagapasha (serpent noose), spear,
plough, and the shining axe."[15] (Red Colur).
(According to the Mudgala Purana version, flag is mentioned instead of plough).
The image of vīragaṇapati according to this dhyānaśloka is given in the attachment. It depicts 16 arms all joined on to a normal shoulder blade which can give mobility and efficacy only to two hands, like ordinary men. If this vīragaṇapati were to be realistic, its form ought to have been like that of a spider or an octopus, with eight projections on each side so that each of the imagined limb will be and can be agile. The way vīragaṇapati is picturized here, the poor God can only just about manage to sit motionless like a கொலு பொம்மை, that's all!
That such doubts came to some people even in the olden days is borne out by the legend of the shepherd who later became kāḷidāsa (in some traditions this is attributed to Tenali Raman) asking kāḷi how she would manage if she caught a cold with all her thousand noses
I will say, in view of the above, that let us not find with our older generations for whatever they believed; those beliefs suited them and they lived their lives peacefully with all those beliefs. But what was good for them may not be suitable for the present day world, and for the present generations. So, let us try and find out what is suitable for us today.
