List of avatar claimants

This is a list of notable people who have explicitly claimed and are considered by others to be avatars of the Supreme Being or of a more limited expansion of Ishvara or other expression of divinity. This list does not include the traditional Dashavatara (ten avatars of Vishnu) as their religious status is already fixed within Hinduism.[1]

Claimants
  • Meher Baba - "I am the Avatar of this Age!"[2] "You know that you are a human being, and I know that I am the Avatar. It is my whole life!"[3] "Irrespective of doubts and convictions, and for the Infinite Love I bear for one and all, I continue to come as the Avatar, to be judged time and again by humanity in its ignorance, in order to help man distinguish the Real from the false."[4][5] He maintained he was the Avatar, God in human form[6]
  • Mother Meera - claims to be an avatar of Shakti, the primordial mother goddess.[7] The sense of avatar as mother goddess is unique to the sect of Hinduism called Shaktism.[8][9]
  • Sathya Sai Baba - claimed to be an avatar of Shiva and Shakthi.[10]

See also

References
  1. Garuda Purana (1.86.10-11)
  2. Meher Prabhu: Lord Meher, The Biography of the Avatar of the Age, Meher Baba, Manifestation, Inc. 1986, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 6018
  3. To Paul Brunton in 1930, Meher Prabhu: Lord Meher, The Biography of the Avatar of the Age, Meher Baba, Manifestation, Inc. 1986, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 1349
  4. The God-Man: The life, journeys and work of Meher Baba with an interpretation of his silence and spiritual teaching, C.B. Purdom, 1964 p. 171
  5. Meher Baba's Highest of the High Declaration
  6. https://www.oshonews.com/2015/01/09/osho-speaks-on-meher-baba/
  7. Adilakshmi Olati, "The Mother", page 4
  8. John Stratton Hawley and Vasudha Narayanan, The life of Hinduism, University of California Press, 2006, p. 174
  9. Noel Sheth, Hindu Avatāra and Christian Incarnation: A Comparison. 2002. Philosophy East and West (University of Hawai'i Press) pp. 98–125.
  10. Sathya Sai Baba "[..] Shiva and Shakthi together at Puttaparthi as Sathya Sai Baba [..] Let Me tell you one more thing: nothing can impede or halt the work of this Avatar." Discourse by Sathya Sai Baba delivered on the occasion of Guru Poornima Day, 6 July 1963

Further reading
  • Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma. Norman C. McClelland. McFarland 2011. ASIN B06WGMT2CS.
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