only the general condition of a higher aim and a more supreme and divine utility. For there are two aspects of the divine birth ; one is a descent, the birth of God in humanity, the Godhead manifesting itself in the human form and nature, the eternal Avatar; the other is an ascent, the birth of man into the Godhead, nman rising into the divine nature and consciousness, madbhdvam dgatak; itis the being born anew ina second birth of the soul. Itis that new birth which Avatarhood and the upholding of the Dharma are intended to serve. This double aspect in the Gita’s doctrine of Avatarhood is apt to be missed by the cur- sory reader satisfled, as most are, with catching a superficial view of its profound teachings, and it is missed too by the formal commentator petrified in the rigidity of the schools. Yet it is necessary, surely, to the whole meaning of the doctrine. Otherwise the Avatar.idea would be only a dogma, a popular supers- tition, or an imaginative or mystic deification of histori- cal or legendary supermen, not whatthe Gita makes all its teaching, a deep philosophical and religious truth and an essential part of or step to the suprcme mystery of all, rahasyam uttamam.
If there were not this rising of man into the God- head to be helped by the descent of God into humanity, Avatarhood for the sake of the Dharma would be an otiose phenomenon, since mere Right, mere justice or standards of virtue can always be upheld by the divine omnipotence through its ordinary means, by great men or great movements, by the life and work of sages and kings and religious teachers, without any actual incarna- tion. The Avatar comes as the manifestation of the
