Avatar; a changing and evolving Religious teaching in Hindu Sources

Any religious teaching passes different stages before it develops. It sometimes begins as a simple concept and then develop into complex philosophical teachings. The same is true of Hindu tradition; for example the teaching of "avatar" first came from its most ancient sources, i.e. Vedas and then developed to reach its final form as great Puranas and became a theory about how God manifests Himself which serves the system of Hindu theology and directs the existing polytheism in this religion. Considering the initial concept of this teaching and reviewing its origin, the present paper studies its final form in Vishnu Purana and Bhagavata Purana. A review of some of the instances of these Puranas shows that the teaching in these texts not only refers to several incarnations of Vishnu but is also interpreted, in its final form, as a manifestation of the emergence of Brahman in the countenance of the multiple main and secondary gods and emanation of divine energy to all the creatures in the universe.