God Vishnu's Buddhavatar and the Development of Hinduism in India during the 4th-8th Centuries

Abstract

The history of Vedic religion began with the migration of the Indo-European tribes, called the Indo-Aryan people, to the Indian subcontinent in 1,500 BC, and this religion became the dominant religion in the northern part of the subcontinent. The socio-economic change in northern India and the inadequacy of the Vedic norm that occured in the sixth century BC led to the rise of a new school of thought, namely Buddhism, emerging in the form of the anti-Brahmanical doctrines. The new religion soon acquired the status of a major religion. The Brahmanas tried to regain the faith by composing a new set of texts which had a significant long-term effect, called the Puranas. They introduced new gods and new rituals. The estabishment of the Gupta Empire in the early fourth century AD marked the return of power to the Brahmanical religion. During this period, the Brahmanas also added the doctrines of the avatara or the divine incarnation in a human form, in which the Buddha became one of Vishnu's incarnations in the Buddhavatar. It could be said that the Brahmanas realized that the way to win over the Buddhists was to include the religions of indigenous people into Hinduism. Therefore, this artical aims to study the Buddhavatar as it reflects the development of Hinduism during the 4^th-8^th centuries.