Page:Philosophy of bhagawad-gita.pdf/72

48 of Viṣhṇu. But that was an exceptional case and is very little understood by either Vaiṣhṇavites or Buḍḍhists. Parashurāma's Avaṭār will certainly be disputed by some writers. I believe that, looking at the terrible things he did, the Maḍhwas thought that, in the case of Parashurāma, there was no real Avaṭār, but a mere overshadowing of the man by Mahāviṣhṇu. But, setting aside disputed cases, we have two undisputed human Avaṭārs—Rāma and Kṛṣhṇa.

Take for instance the case of Kṛṣhṇa. In this case two views are possible. We may suppose that Kṛṣhṇa, as an individual, was a man who had been evoluting for millions of years, and had attained great spiritual perfection, and that in the course of his spiritual progress the Logos descended to him and associated itself with his soul. In that case it is not the Logos that manifested itself as Kṛṣhṇa, but Kṛṣhṇa who raised himself to the position of the Logos. In the case of a Mahāṭma who becomes a Jīvanmukṭa, it is his soul, as it were, that is transformed into the Logos. In the case of a Logos descending into a man, it does so, not chiefly by reason of that man's spiritual perfection, but for some ulterior purpose of its own for the benefit of humanity. In this case it is the Logos that descends to the plane of the soul and manifests its energy in and through the soul, and not the soul that ascends to the plane of the Logos.