Literary notes about avatar (AI summary)
In literature, the word avatar operates on multiple levels—from divine incarnation to metaphorical embodiment. Religious texts often portray avatars as the tangible manifestations of deities, as with the celebrated incarnations of Vishnu ([1], [2], [3], [4]) and even the symbolic presence of a divine spirit manifesting in an ethereal form ([5], [6], [7]). At the same time, writers employ the term to convey a transformative or reimagined version of a character or idea, whether highlighting the emergence of a new self in a virtual realm ([8]) or designating an individual as the living embodiment of a broader social or mythic phenomenon ([9], [10]). Thus, the term enriches narrative layers by blending the sacred with the metaphorical, inviting readers to perceive characters and events as more than mere proximities to the ordinary.
- In the eighth Avatar he appears as Krishna and in the ninth as Buddha.
— from Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology by James Freeman Clarke - The sixth Avatar of Vichnou, as a Bramin, armed with an axe, to chastise kings and warriors.
— from Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards by William Andrew Chatto - To the priest he is merely an avatar of Vishnu.
— from The Religions of India Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris Jastrow by Edward Washburn Hopkins - At a later period Hinduism, as has been observed, calmly accepts Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu.
— from The Religions of India Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris Jastrow by Edward Washburn Hopkins - A considerable poetic literature in Tamil has grown up around Agastya, a South Indian avatar.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - The glorious form of the avatar appeared in a shimmering blaze as I sat in my room at the Regent Hotel in Bombay.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - He thus qualifies for the scriptural classification of Mahavatar (Great Avatar).
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - The experience of self-constitution as an avatar on the Internet is no longer one of a unique self, but of multiples.
— from The Civilization of Illiteracy by Mihai Nadin - John Swinton, who presided, described Whitman as a troglodyte, but a cave-dweller he never was; rather the avatar of the hobo.
— from Ivory, Apes and Peacocks by James Huneker - The revolution, as Burke maintained, was in fact the avatar of a diabolic power.
— from The English Utilitarians, Volume 2 (of 3) James Mill by Leslie Stephen
