4
4
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2
2
6
6
.
.
D
D
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I
S
S
C
C
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U
S
S
S
S
I
I
O
O
N
N
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F
F
A
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D
D
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T
T
tory of his geographical region (echoes of divine kingship, egalitarianism, broad
inclusivism) and/or the elevated status of his bardic caste (see Chapters 5 and 7).
More evident, is the “authority” that he believes his advaitic convictions confer
upon him (see p.240)—he seems to have sincerely and fully identified himself
with “the Highest” (p.274), with ātman/brahman, and believes that this identity is
the sine qua non of avatarhood (p.235, cf. p.259—where he denies avatar status to
Jesus for this reason). Most obvious, is his inventive use of, and broad acquaint-
ance with, traditional avatar ideas (rather than “knowledge of tradition”—we have
seen that he rarely makes explicit citations of traditional sources), both of these
perhaps being a reflection of his bardic caste background. Contributing to this
also, are perhaps an intense period of personal study of the Bhagavad-Gītā (the lo-
cus classicus of avatar ideas, p.195), and a thorough knowledge of the Shri Sai
Satcharita (the major account casting Shirdi Sai Baba as an avatar, p.98). On top
of this, is a strong influence upon him of the ideas of Ramakrishna—who claimed
to be an avatar, and Vivekananda—who promoted Ramakrishna as “the greatest of
avatars”. Similarly important, are a significant influence of Theosophical Society
expectations of “the avatar to come” (he was literally “schooled” in these); some
influence of (misinterpretations of) the ideas of Aurobindo on the “descent of
Kṛṣṇa” (to Aurobindo, a state of mind—to Sathya Sai Baba a literal descent); a
tendency to define himself over-and-against other modern avatar claimants (like
Meher Baba); and his strong background in intense devotional experiences (paral-
leling, to a lesser extent, those of Caitanya).
There is thus some justification for what Bassuk (1987b:94) notes to be an:
evolution of an awareness of divinity, starting with Chaitanya who is unconscious of
being an Avatar, then Ramakrishna who is semiconscious of his divinity, followed by
Aurobindo and The Mother who are conscious of each other as Avatars, then Meher
Baba who is self-conscious of his Avatarhood, and ending with Satya Sai Baba who is
unself-conscious about his divine status. A gradual evolving of the cognisance of di-
vinity has transpired among these historical God-men and God-woman [sic].
Bassuk paints in broad strokes, but this is an example in which his insights are
partly borne out—he made this assertion based upon far less information than we
have seen here, but it proves to be of some validity nonetheless. Bassuk’s work
has attracted some criticisms in this last regard, and my work is no doubt open to
some of the same sorts of criticisms, but I have at least tried to base my ideas more
upon specific details. Francis X. Clooney (1988:177-178) comments on the defi-
ciencies of Bassuk’s work:
6
6
.
.
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3
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3
Questions that theologians and historians of religion might ask are never raised: for
example, if, as the author admits, the Gita never uses the word avatara, how is it
still true that Gita 4.6—7 “states the doctrine clearly and unambiguously” (p. 5)?
When and why did the idea that there were ten avataras of Visnu come into vogue
and reorganize earlier, diverse materials? When were the many strands of Krsnaite
myth combined into one “life story?” Did Ramakrishna mean by avatara what ear-
lier generations had meant, and does Satya Sai Baba mean the same as either?
It has not been my aim to answer questions of this kind—my focus has very much
been on Sathya Sai Baba—but I can at least hint at some answers to most of these
questions. I will briefly summarize here what we have seen in regard to these.
We saw that neither the Bhagavad-Gītā, nor the Mahābhārata, nor the Vālmīki-
Rāmāyaṇa use the term avatāra, but that they do convey some very avatar-like
ideas, and that Bhagavad-Gītā 4:6-7 has become a veritable locus classicus of avatar
ideas—recall Sathya Sai Baba’s observation that it “has been quoted so often and
by so many that it has lost all significance” (p.197). We saw that ideas about the
number of avatars “varied hopelessly before 800
CE
”, and that—even after that,
even within one work, the Bhāgavata-Purāṇa, the most homogeneous of the
Purāṇas, the number of avatars is variously posited to be “twenty-four, seven,
eight, fourteen, twenty-one”, “twenty-two”, or “innumerable” (p.215). We also
saw something of the Sāṃkhya philosophy underlying such enumerations, and I
suggested that they must have had a mnemonic function, albeit that, ironically,
this can only have contributed to the diversity of avatar accounts (if one knows
there should be 10 avatars, but can only remember 7, new figures must be added).
Moreover, we saw how some of the earlier mythic material was “reorganized”
and absorbed into the category of avatar. Through interlocking chains of resem-
blances forged in accordance with ritual ideology and perhaps collapsed into iden-
tifications under the influence of upaniṣadic ideas, the figures of Indra, Viṣṇu, the
Puruṣa, Nārāyaṇa, and Prajāpati coalesced—so too Vāsudeva and Kṛṣṇa—and,
likely under the influence of ideas of divine kingship, Rāma came to be seen as an
avatar, along with Pṛthu (the legendary “first king”). Sages like Kapila (founder of
Sāṃkhya) were added for obvious reasons, and I have cited a number of more in-
depth historical studies on the “reorganization” of the material foundational to
other avatar accounts (Soifer on Narasiṃha and Vāmana; Matchett on Kṛṣṇa; and I
would add here that some of Dandekar’s articles on the origins of Kṛṣṇa offer good
suggestions as to “when the many strands of Krsnaite myth combined into one life
story”). Finally, we have seen that Ramakrishna to a large extent did not mean the