Krishna Janmashtami celebrates the birth of Krishna some five thousand years ago. The eighth day following Raksha Bandhan is observed as Krishna’s birthday. According to some Hindu traditions, Krishna is not considered an incarnation of Vishnu because he is Vishnu.
Vishnu is supposed to have ten incarnations, the Dashavatars, nine of which have already taken place. They are
- Matsya – fish
- Kurma – tortoise
- Varaha – boar
- Narasimha – half lion half man
- Vamana – dwarf
- Parashurama – warrior
- Rama – supreme being
- Balarama – prosperous being
- Buddha – enlightened being, the most recent avatar of Vishnu/Krishna
- Kalki – the future and final of the ten avatars
The wiki article on the concept of avatar is quite informative and worth a read. As a Hindu, I ought to know this stuff well. It’s fascinating.
Anyway, Janmashtami greetings. Have fun.
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 
Almost as good as Harry Potter fiction!
Do people actually believe all this is true?
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Only those people who are unable to understand metaphor and are mentally handicapped with the inability to comprehend symbolic representations and ideas — only those people will be confused with the ideas of incarnations and avatars. That is the kind of mentality that is unable to realize, for instance, that the Harry Potter books are a collection of imaginative stories, and they are not history or factual reporting by journalists.
In this regard, monotheists are retards. They take their myths as the literal truth (all sorts of stupid things like talking snakes) and are unable to comprehend that other traditions are not as stupid. In Indic traditions, we have the capacity to distinguish the symbolic from the literal. Retards don’t get that.
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So Rama and Sita actually existed and the former was born in Ayodhya? Or are these all myths?
It’s a genuine question from a retard trying to ascertain where the facts and the fiction begin and end. Stories are important but they need to be seen as such and not confused with reality and imagined characters who confuse the masses.
No need to get on a high horse old chap.
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“Almost as good as Harry Potter fiction” — that characterization of a tradition that is deeper than any silly god-as-designer of the universe does indicate a shallow understanding coupled with the desire to ridicule. It’s a low enough that there is no need to be on a high horse.
Unlike the Abrahamic traditions which rely on historical accuracy to be even considered valid, the Indic traditions don’t require realism since what matters are the ideas and principles. The authors and the actors of the play are not important at all. Every person is, after all is said and done, a god in the Indic tradition. Whether Rama is god or not is not really material. Whether he existed or not does not matter. What matters is what the ideals one associates with the person named.
The symbolism matters. It matters that one recognizes that Rama was an ideal king — whatever that means. I will not debate that matter with a person who believes that Rama was an ideal king. I don’t believe in “god” as the Abrahamics present it to be. I subscribe to the Advaita Vedanta concept of “I am the Bramha” and “I am That.”
I couldn’t give a FF whether Rama was born in Ayodhya or even if he ever existed. What matters is that a large number of people believed that he existed and those people built a temple to that idea hundreds of years ago, and then an invading barbarian destroyed that temple (and hundreds of other temples) and built a mosque on top of that (like the invading Islamic hordes routinely did), and that it is time that all those mosques were torn down and temples built as the temple worshipers want.
It’s about property rights, not about some silly faith or belief.
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The point I was trying to make is that Harry Potter is fiction. It has some excellent ideas on morality and magic. 400 million books have been sold and read by the masses. Billions of people believe in religious stories which are fantasy, but believed to be true. However, just because billions believe them to be true, does not make it so. If
fantasy religious beliefs are incorporated into laws of the land, it affects non believers eg eating pork, killing cows etc, with religious ‘mob justice’ leading to murder
As a Pastafarian, my religion is ridiculed on a daily basis, even though we believe it is billions of years old and that the Universe and the 5000+ religions on this planet and others were created by our Creator who eisted before Time began. But we do not go around insulting or killing people if our beliefs are made fun of, nor do we insist on laws being passed in line with our beliefs or faith.
It is therfore important to be able to ridicule all ideas , including virgin births, eating the body of a human, heaven, hell, paradise. We must be able to challenge ideas, whether through humour or otherwise for our race to progress.
Killing people because of eg fictitious property rights is not the answer.
As a Pastafarian retard, I see someone on a low horse as much higher than me, as we are often considered the lowest of the low.
Finally I must say I enjoy most of your articles very much and hope to continue to do so. Let us not let personal emotions based on beliefs or faith come between us as individuals .
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May I as a Pastafarian also humbly request that rather than tear down mosques and build more temples as you suggested, please consider building free hospitals instead, for all earning under say 200,000 rupees a year .
Of course that is subject to the Courts approving the destruction of the buildings.
This can also be extended to all churches in the country, as the Portuguese/British Christian hordes probably destroyed temples too.
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Too bad, Mr WJG, that you were not around to advise the Islamic hordes who destroyed 1000s of temples — they’d have build free hosiptals instead if only you’d been around. But since you were not there, they went about destroying other people’s property. And now it is time for the descendants of the rightful owners of that property to reclaim them.
You still have a role to play, as a grand advisor. Please give advice to those who spend their money (note the word “their”) to build mosques and tell them to build hospitals instead. I’ll be eagerly waiting to hear how that works out.
And finally, not just mosques that were built after destroying temples, even churches that were built by the European invaders should also be reclaimed. It’s a small matter of property rights — which I am sure you will understand.
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I find it curious that you are constantly bitching about Hindu beliefs. Why do you give the Islamic and Christian insanity a pass? Why do you insist that the Hindu prohibition against eating beef to be such an outrage and not the Islamic prohibition against pork? Why is human sacrific ok (Christianity)?
Sure Pastafarianism is ancient. (In fact, the prophet of the FSM Chruch wrote to me in the ancient past. Here’s a bit from that email: “I’m working on a new section of the site – “what the experts are saying”. So if you’d be willing, and since you have a PHD, I’d like to get a quote from you that I can put up on the page (I will not post your email address, and let me know if you’d like to [xxxxx] out your name).”)
And yes, I don’t take things personally nor do I gratutitously shoot at people. I criticize ideas, since ideas are my stock in trade.
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Janmashtami greetings.✨
By the way, philosophically speaking, Janmashtmi is the day of manifestation of Shri Krishn. Not the day of his birth. Shri Krishn exists at all time.
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However that may be, people believe that Krishna was born to Devaki and was raised by a foster mother Yashoda, and that he grew up as a cowherd, ran around the neighborhood stealing butter, etc etc. The cutest story in my opinion is the one in which a neighbor complains to his mother about some stolen butter. Yashoda grabs Krishna and insists that he open his mouth to check if he’d eaten stolen butter. He opens his mouth, and inside his mouth she sees all of creation.
It’s all stories and some of them are beautiful.
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