Sathya Sai confirmed ten avatars

Forwarding himself as a Universal Teacher, is it not rather incongruous that Sathya Sai Baba upholds the Hindu teaching on divine avatars (i.e. God appearing and reappearing in human form). But this is totally contrary to Islam, which admits of no representations or embodiments of Allah, nor Christianity, for which only Jesus is a Divine personage, the Son of God – not God as such? Nor does the Buddha reincarnate, and Jews believe in the Messiah, though they also believe God once appeared as a burning bush. This means Sathya Sai Baba is far from promoting universal teachings in his support for the Hindu teaching.

Traditionally, ten avatars or reincarnations of Vishnu are listed (dasavatara) as the most important of an indefinable number of other avatars. There are, in historical order, 1. Matsya, the fish. 2. Kurma, the turtle or tortoise. 3. Varaha, the boar. 4. Narasimha, the Man-Lion. 5. Vamana, the Dwarf Brahmin Priest. 6. Parashurama, Rama with an axe, who avenged wrongs with it 7. Rama, prince and later king of Ayodhya. 8. Krishna, as described in the Gita and the Bhagavatha.

Three primitive avatars: A widely-held belief among Hindus is that God has in ages past actually incarnated as a vast fish (Matsya) turtle or tortoise (Kurma), a giant boar (Varuna) and a lion-man (Narasimha), each time to save the world from one or another threat! Sathya Sai Baba has lent credence to this belief, as shown below.

Here are the first three animal forms of God as avatars in Hindu mythology:-

Sathya Sai Baba teaches about the many figures of Indian mythology as having existed. He sometimes speaks of the symbolism of the ancient and more fabulous myths, but he mostly speaks of the famous ten avatars (dasavatara) as historical fact. He has reportedly caused some of his earlier devotees to have visions of the ten avatars, as reported by his official biographer, the impressionable would-be poet N. Kasturi, and by another of his biographers who was helped out by Kasturi, Ra. Ganapati

Two such ’stories’ are believed by many Sai followers to this day. Kasturi first, Ganapati afterwards:-

”A devotee from Kamalapuram was asking Baba to show him some miracle and one day, Baba called him and the members of his family, his mother and the rest, and offered to show them the ten Dasavatharas, the Ten Incarnations of Vishnu! Matsya (the fish), Kurma (the tortoise) and Varaha (the boar) passed off without any incident but, when the terrible form of Narasimha appeared, they shrieked and yelled with fright, fearing that the house might collapse on their heads. They clamoured “Enough,” “Enough,” and Baba calmed down after Mangalarathi (worship of him with a flame) was performed, by persons, who, though they were there, did not see the Forms, because the Vision was not intended for them!” (Sathyam, Sivam, Sundaram Vol. 1 by Prof. N. Kasturi, page 65)

” … the Purohit of a family whose guest Baba was at Mysore was granted, quite unexpectedly, a Vision of Narasimha, and the Srivaishnava Brahmin swooned and did not recover consciousness for several hours.” (Prof. N. Kasturi in Sathyam, Sivam, Sunderam Vol. 1, page 64f.)

“The Dasavathara Forms were vouchsafed to another gentleman now deceased, a relative of the Karnam family. As a matter of fact, he passed away, because his physical frame was too weak to contain the joy of the Vision. Baba took him to the river and asked him to watch the reflection, His own reflection, in the water. The man announced later that he saw at first Sathya Sai Baba Himself, then, only the halo of hair that surrounds His head, and then all the ten avathars in the order in which they are mentioned in the Puranas; the Kalki avathar on horseback had the form or Baba Himself!” (Baba: Sathya Sai by Ra. Ganapati, p. 81)