Incarnation

"Avatar, Sanskrit avatāra (“descent”), in Hinduism, the incarnation of a deity in human or animal form to counteract some particular evil in the world. The term usually refers to these 10 appearances of Vishnu: Matsya (fish), Kurma (tortoise), Varaha (boar), Narasimha (half man, half lion), Vamana (dwarf), Parashurama (Rama with the axe), Rama (hero of the Ramayana epic), Krishna (the divine cowherd), Buddha, and Kalkin (the incarnation yet to come)."

"The number of Vishnu’s avatars is sometimes extended or their identities changed, according to local preferences. Thus, Krishna is in some areas elevated to the rank of a deity and his half brother, Balarama, included as an avatar."

"One formulation of the doctrine is given in the religious poem the Bhagavad Gita when charioteer Lord Krishna tells Arjuna: “Whenever there is a decline of righteousness and rise of unrighteousness then I send forth Myself. For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked, and for the establishment of righteousness, I come into being from age to age.”"

"Instead of a just king and a perfect man, Rāma is an incarnation of Vishnu and an intense object of devotion, dwarfing the Vedic gods; Kampaṉ called his work Irāmāvatāram (“Rāma’s Incarnation”); yet the emphasis is not on Vishnu but on dharma (“the law”), localized and Tamilized."

"Both of them revert to their divine status, but in opposite places. When Brahma is chastising Rama for doubting Sita, he reassures Rama that Sita is an incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi and will be reunited with him in heaven."

"... all conscience and moralizing, and Kumbhakarna (Ravana's monstrous brother, who sleeps for years at a time and wakes only to eat and fight) is a superb literary incarnation of the bestial id."

"Dharma, the god, must undergo the curse for miscarriage of dharma. Being born as a human is different both from fathering a child (as Dharma fathersYudhishthira) and from spinning off an incarnation (as Vishnudoes for Rama and Krishna), ..."

"A slave girl who functions as a dispensable, low-class stand-in (like theNishadas burned in the house of lac) gives birth toVidura, the incarnation of Dharma in fulfillment ofMandavya's curse that he should be born as the son of a Shudra..."

"The myth of Vishnu's incarnation as the Buddha is established in full detail in the Vishnu Parana, represented on the sixth- to seventh-century Dashavatara temple at Deogarh and mentioned in a seventh century Pallava inscription and an eight century Tamil inscription."

"Jainism reflects a belief in an eternal and transmigrating life principle (jiva) that is akin to an individual soul—holds that karma is a fine particulate substance that settles upon the jiva according to the deeds that a person does. Thus, the burden of the old karma is added to the new karma that is acquired during the next existence until the jiva frees itself by religious disciplines, especially by ahimsa (“nonviolence”), and rises to the place of liberated jivas at the top of the universe."

"Sikhism teaches a doctrine of reincarnation based on the Hindu view but in addition holds that, after the Last Judgment, souls—which have been reincarnated in several existences—will be absorbed in God."

"Muslims believe that there are no intermediaries between God and the creation that he brought into being by his sheer command, “Be.” Although his presence is believed to be everywhere, he is not incarnated in anything. He is the sole creator and sustainer of the universe, wherein every creature bears witness to his unity and lordship. But he is also just and merciful: his justice ensures order in his creation, in which nothing is believed to be out of place, and his mercy is unbounded and encompasses everything."

"Ahl-e Ḥaqq, (Arabic: “People of Truth,” or “People of God”), a secret, syncretistic religion, derived largely from [[Islām, whose adherents are found in western Iran, with enclaves in Iraq. They retain the 12 imams of the Ithnā ʿAsharīyah sect and such aspects of Islāmicmysticism as the communal feast. Central to their religion, however, is a belief in seven successive manifestations of God. They further believe in the transmigration of souls, asserting that every person must pass through 1,001 incarnations, in the course of which he receives the proper reward for his actions."

"Idrīs (and Enoch) has also been woven into the Islamic mythology surrounding the Greco-Egyptian god Hermes Trismegistos as the first incarnation of the tripartite Hermes."