The scriptural masters of the Hindus exhibit an infinite amount of patience and understanding, which almost amounts to an intellectual daring, and they readily come out to satisfy all possible doubts of all the students. Here we find Krishna trying to explain how He was the very Infinite in His Real Nature and that He had Himself, in the very beginning of creation, given out Brahma-Vidya to Lord Sun.

In this section we find an exhaustive discussion of the “theory of incarnation” (Avatara), as propounded in the Pauranic literature. To many foreigners, this portion of the Hindu philosophy and belief has been very confusing, and many of them have expressed such opinions about it; and, perhaps, none has put it so vehemently as Max Mueller.

But, when we try to understand it with a sufficient background of the Vedantic concept of creation, it is not very difficult for us to follow the idea. We have elsewhere explained in the “Fall of Man” how, when the Infinite Reality functions through ‘unactivity’ (Sattwa), we have the concept of the God-Principle. Later on in this section, Krishna Himself explains how He, in all freedom, takes upon Himself the matter-envelopments and plays the game of the Immortal among the mortals — but all the time Himself being ever conscious of His own complete Divine Nature. Not a single mortal embodiment can be the result of sheer accident. Every man comes to the field of the world only as a result of his evolutionary progress, even according to the Darwinian theory. Each embodied life indicates a long autobiography of that ego, and it is only after a long chain of existence in different forms that it has at last reached its present destination. In each life, as soon as the ego expresses itself in its given field of activity, it, fortunately, forgets the entire past, and carries with it only a distinct flavour (vasana) thereof. But a Master-mind like Lord Krishna, in His Divine Omniscience, understands that both He and Arjuna had been through many vicissitudes of existence, and that “I KNOW THEM ALL WHILE YOU KNOW THEM NOT.”

“HOW THEN CAN YOU, THE ETERNAL LORD, HAVE A BIRTH IN THE ABSENCE OF DHARMA AND ADHARMA?” LISTEN:

O Arjuna, bahuni, many; janmani, lives; me, of Mine; vyatitani, have passed; tava ca, and so have yours. Aham, I; veda know; tani, them; sarvani, all; (but) tvam, you; va vetta, know not, due to your power of understanding being obstructed by righteousness, unrighteousness, etc. However, parantapa, O scorcher of foes; aham, I know, possessing as I do unobstructed power of knowledge, because by nature I am enternal, pure, enlightened and free. ‘In that case, how, in spite of the absence of righteousness and unrighteousness, can there be any birth for You who are the eternal God?’ That is beng answered: