C. Mackenzie Brown, Professor of Religion at Trinity University,
One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200; e-mail
firstname.lastname@example.org. Avataric evolutionism is the
idea that ancient Hindu myths of Vishnu's ten incarnations
foreshadowed Darwinian evolution. In a previous essay I examined
the late nineteenth-century origins of the theory in the works
of Keshub Chunder Sen and Madame Blavatsky. Here I consider two
major figures in the history of avataric evolutionism in the
early twentieth century, N. B. Pavgee, a Marathi Brahmin deeply
involved in the question of Aryan origins, and Aurobindo Ghose,
political activist turned mystic. Pavgee, unlike Keshub, used
avataric evolutionism in expounding his nationalistic goals for
an independent India. His rationale was bolstered by the idea
that India was the fountainhead of all science and civilization.
Aurobindo saw in avataric evolutionism a possible key to
understanding the involution and evolution of the supreme spirit
in the realm of matter as tau