The avatar benders EYE CULTURE
Aslow-motion glide through hyperspace marked the 58th convocation of IIT Bombay, the institution that is widely regarded as the aspirational mecca for hundreds of thousands of young Indians. Animated digital avatars of faculty members put their hands together for recorded applause, while personalised e-avatars of students mouthed the convocation pledge in a ceremony that sought to “recreate the sense of achievement and pride of passing out of India’s premier engineering institute,” said an official note.
In its latest incarnation, the word avatar adds yet another layer to its storied history, while deftly shifting allegiance from the world of the divine to the contemporary Artificial Intelligence-driven universe. This is not the first time that the word has made the switch. In its spirited journey down the ages, avatar has made several forays into popular culture and technology; as a cultic movie by James Cameron that is likely to release a sequel in 2021, as a hugely popular animation franchise on Nickelodeon and as a deck of virtual masks created by Facebook that lets users become a character of their choosing — in all of this, the word “avatar” has found itself a popular set of users and meanings.
Avatar’s malleability of spirit and usage is quite remarkable, given its divine connections and usage within the Indian religious and mythological framework. Originally meant to denote a god’s descent upon earth, many scholars locate the first appearance of the term avatar in the Puranas, as the dasavatar or the 10 avatars of Vishnu.
It was coined, ostensibly, to string together a coherent tale of deliverance and devotion around a god who was emerging as a significant power centre within the Hindu trinity (Brahmavishnu-shiva) at the time. Vishnu descends to the earth to restore order, root out evil and ally with the good; he has done so nine times already with the 10th avatar due any day. The 10 avatars bring him in close contact with his devotees and at the time of their telling, provided a unified banner under which the Vaishnava cult could gather different trines and belief systems.
Ever since, the word avatar has come to be firmly associated with Vishnu but the two were not always bound by an umbilical cord, several studies indicate. The goddess or the devi manifests in many avatars and so did Brahma. Also, Vishnu’s manifestation in the world of mortals was variously termed as rupa, akriti and so on before the word avatar came to be assigned to his sole care. The understanding that the use of avatar bestows upon its speakers — that of an incarnate god coming down to earth to save his people — is also not unique to Hinduism, although the repetitive coming of the lord to save his worshippers may well be.
To break it down to its roots, the word avatar is a conjunct of two Sanskrit words ava and tr and means descending or crossing over between realms. Just as avatar has come to mean many different things over the past few years, moving further and further away from its origins and yet staying close, it is interesting to see that the original term too tumbled through a few variants before sticking to the present form.
Some scholars believe that the original word was avatarana, which was later corrupted to avatar, and it stood for the action of descending or crossing over. So initially the word described the process or the journey that the divine being undertook to be among mortals and it later came to mean the earthly form that the god took.
In its adaptations ever since, the word has changed its character several times over. In James Cameron’s movie that made $2.78 billion after its release in 2009 and is among Hollywood’s biggest box-office successes even today, avatar marks a state of existence. It is no longer associated with a divine transformation but rather that of a mortal who switches between the real and the fantastical worlds. It is the form that a paraplegic marine named Jake Sully takes to get to know the world of the Na’vi (a fictional tribe living on the moon) better.
The word keeps its ties to fantasy and magic in the animation franchise Avatar: The Last Airbender where the plot revolves around people who can “bend” the four elements — for instance, water benders can fold and twist water and earth benders can hurl boulders and so on. The avatar is one who controls all four elements and serves to protect the universe by ensuring that no single element bending nation or tribe becomes all powerful.
Magic, fantasy and magic realism — the word has traversed all of these worlds with relish and ease and as the e-adaptation of the IIT convocation ritual indicates, it may well have made the switch to the Artificial Intelligence universe without missing a beat. Its divine halo notwithstanding, avatar seems quite comfortable in its skin, both with the sacred and the profane.