Buddha

Buddha and Buddhism are huge subjects, well beyond the compact confines of the dashavatara, but we will focus on the limited manner in which it becomes a part of the set of stories that are sung in praise of Vishnu. In many texts, there has been extended debate

What does an avatara do? As the stories about the other avataras show: Save the universe, help the gods, come to the aid of a traumatized people, destroy a clan and so on. Buddha does none of the above, he rejects the ritualized framework that had begun to define the Hindu way of life.

Buddha, as Joseph Campbell describes him, is a rebel culture hero. Like Diogenes, the cynic in Greece and Tao te Ching in China, he was going against the prevalent order and its excesses. He sought to find a new way, different from that being practiced by the priests and religious leaders.

Still, there are stories about Buddha and how or why he is an avatara and here are two we read about:

The story goes (in the Bhagvata Purana and then in much greater detail in the Skanda Purana) that there came to be a period of great famine. The gods appealed to Brahma who in turn reaches out to a mortal prince called Ripanjaya and asks him to rule over Prithvi and help her denizens find a way out of their misery. Ripanjaya has to change his name to Divodasa, however.

The prince is curious as to what led the greatest of all gods to appeal to him, after all he is but a mortal. Brahma tells him, this is the only way that the rain gods will favour the people and deliver earth out of her misery. So Ripanjaya renamed Divodasa agrees, but he too has a condition.

The gods must leave earth, if he is to be a good king. They do that reluctantly and Siva most reluctantly of all, gives up Kasi. Divodasa ruled over Kasi for 8,000 years. His reign was good and prosperous and the people were happy, so happy in fact that no one really missed the gods.

Siva had found out, much to his discomfort, that no one really needed him anymore. He had attempted to make his way back to his favourite earthly abode in Kashi but when he asked those who lived there if they missed him or wanted him back, they were indifferent.

So Siva went to Vishnu for help who decided to intervene. He came down to earth with Lakshmi and Garuda as Buddha, Laxmi is his wife and Garuda is his student. The three deliberately went against the Vedic doctrine, preaching a different way of life, one without ritual and sacrifice. This was meant to mislead the people and lead them astray until they realized the need for a godly presence again.

Things go to plan and finally, Divodasa appealed to Vishnu who told him that he was wrong to throw Siva out of Kasi. As a peace offering, Divodasa is asked to step down from his throne and hand Kasi back to Siva, which he did and Buddha’s role as an avatara of Vishnu thereby came to an end.

Another story (Siva Purana): Gautam Rishi, a powerful and angry sage and his wife Ahalya were being treated poorly by local Brahmin women in their village. The women resented Ahalya’s beauty and would often ill-treat her or refuse to let her fill water at the village well. One day, they all plotted to get her out of the village and they asked their husbands to work out a plan. The men of the village then collectively appealed to Ganesha who tricked Gautama Rishi into killing a cow, which at the time called for a severe punishment. To appease the gods, Gautama Rishi undertakes an arduous penance and one day, pleased with his prayers, Siva appeared before him and asked him to choose what he wanted. Siva also told him how he had been tricked into the killing, the sage had merely hurled a bundle of straw at the cow which, at the god’s intervention, turned into a deadly weapon and killed the cow. An angry Gautama Rishi then comes back as an incarnation of Vishnu, as the Buddha, and establishes a new religion.