a baby god - Ram (avatar of the god Vishnu) from Ramayana episode 1.mpeg

Comments from: http://trinities.org/blog/?p=2937

The scene starts in Vishnu's heaven; he's the blue guy relaxing on the couch. He's called the Preserver, and is a god of grace and compassion.

:16 - On behalf of many, Brahma the Creator god beseeches Vishnu to come to earth, which is oppressed by the demon King Ravan. Others join in.

1:37 - that's Ravan, rocking that mustache and literally treading the earth under foot. He has a good bad guy laugh.

2:08 - Shiva ("the Destroyer" - though he's not a bad or purely negative deity) appears, in leopard skin, to urge Vishnu to descend and take birth as a human avatar. (Aside: he's the third of the so-called "Hindu Trinity" (Triumurti) along with Vishnu and Brahma.) Vishnu greets him as "God of gods;" I'm not sure if that's flattery, or if the source here assumes him to be the one high god. One might assume that Vishnu, not Shiva would be in that position in the Ramayana... In some Vishnu-centered texts, Shiva is actually a manifestation of Vishnu, but that's not going on here.

2:24 - The "Trinity" (it's not really a Trinity, but that's another post) is now on the left of the screen, together with Vishnu's wife, the popular goddess Lakshmi.

3:03 - A very hairy guru takes up the argument. Get a haircut, hippy! ;-) Shiva says he's the guru of the gods. (!)

3:57 - That circular saw blade on Vishnu's finger is a "divine weapon." His other hand holds a conch shell to blow like a horn. Why is he blue? It's the color of the sky, is the common explanation.

4:24 - Vishnu, sympathizing with oppressed humanity, decides to be born as a man to conquer Ravan, restoring balance to the earth. He'll be born as a prince to King Dasarath.

4:52 - Here he is in human form, the baby Ram (Rama). It seems that Lord Vishnu / Ram needs a diaper! He cutes it up, to the delight of the king, his queens, and Shiva, viewing from his holy mountain. The god, possibly the high God, is a cute toddler. Is this patently contradictory nonsense, or a wonderful, almost unthinkable truth?

9:00 - Shiva and his wife or consort Parvati delve into this question. They observe little Ram having a temper tantrum, and she wonders how a/the god could do this. It is "The deepest of mysteries, my Lady." Yes, Shiva here is a mysterian! He adds that God must become a man to show man the true path, by example. The view here seems to be that Vishnu has really become a human being, with all the limitations thereof, and not that he merely appears to be a human. In other words, this is not a docetist avatar theory being presupposed. There is only the briefest flash of worry here about whether this story is self-consistent or self-contradictory.

10:52 - WWRD - "What Would Ram Do?" Ram is presented throughout the Ramayana as an ideal human, a paragon of virtue.

11:19 - Shiva decides he wants in on this salvific action; he'll descend as an avatar too (for the 11th time), as Hanuman, to help Ram in his quest to defeat Ravan.

Category:

Education

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• Hinduism
• avatar
• incarnation
• Ram
• Rama
• Ramayan
• Ramayana
• Indian
• India
• Hindu
• mythology
• guru