Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Bryan Ness, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) AVATÂRAS FOUR LECTURES DELIVERED AT THE TWENTY-FOURTH ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AT ADYAR, MADRAS, DECEMBER, 1899 BY ANNIE BESANT _ENGLISH EDITION_ Theosophical Publishing Society 3 Langham Place, London, W. 1900 * * * * * CONTENTS. PAGE LECTURE I.-- WHAT IS AN AVATÂRA? 7 LECTURE II.-- THE SOURCE OF AND NEED FOR AVATÂRAS 31 LECTURE III.-- SOME SPECIAL AVATÂRAS 65 LECTURE IV.-- SHRÎ KṚIṢHṆA 95 * * * * * AVATÂRAS. FIRST LECTURE. BROTHERS:--Every time that we come here together to study the fundamental truths of all religions, I cannot but feel how vast is the subject, how small the expounder, how mighty the horizon that opens before our thoughts, how narrow the words which strive to sketch it for your eyes. Year after year we meet, time after time we strive to fathom some of those great mysteries of life, of the Self, which form the only subject really worthy of the profoundest thought of man. All else is passing; all else is transient; all else is but the toy of a moment. Fame and power, wealth and science--all that is in this world below is as nothing beside the grandeur of the Eternal Self in the universe and in man, one in all His manifold manifestations, marvellous and beautiful in every form that He puts forth. And this year, of all the manifestations of the Supreme, we are going to dare to study the holiest of the holiest, those manifestations of God in the world in which He shows Himself as divine, coming to help the world that He has made, shining forth in His essential nature, the form but a thin film which scarce veils the Divinity from our eyes. How then shall we venture to approach it, how shall we dare to study it, save with deepest reverence, with profoundest humility; for if there needs for the study of His works patience, reverence and humbleness of heart, what when we study Him whose works but partially reveal Him, when we try to understand what is meant by an Avatâra, what is the meaning, what the purpose of such a revelation?