THE AMATEUR WORD NERD: What does ‘avatar’ have in common with yoga and vegetarians?

By Barbara McAllister

Word of the Day: Avatar

Thanks to video games and blockbuster movies, 21st century Westerners have become familiar with the ancient Hindu word avatar, from the Sanskrit word meaning a divine manifestation.
It’s used to describe a representation of the embodiment of a concept or the manifestation of a person, usually a digital representation on social media, the web or a video game. The literal meaning of the Hindu word avatara is “descent,” specifically the descent of the divine to earth in human or animal form, a concept widely recognized throughout India. Sacred books reveal that the Hindu deity Vishnu has 10 major avatars that may appear. Krishna and Rama are two of Vishnu’s avatars. Eastern philosophers feel that the popular use of the word avatar devalues its spiritual concept.
The first use of the word in a computer game was in a 1979 role-playing computer game Avatar. In 1985, the game Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar became the first time that “avatar” was used in digital media as an on-screen representation of the player themselves. In 1965, Stan Lee created the character Juggernaut, a villainous adversary to the X-Men Super Group. It’s from the anglicized name Jagannatha, one of Vishnu’s avatars. In English usage, a juggernaut is a powerful, destructive, unstoppable force.
Hinduism is among the world’s oldest religions, although it may be argued that it is more a way of life than a religion. It has no common creed or church and is not based on any one holy book or the teachings of a founder. It encompasses a vast collection of ancient writings and is the third largest religion behind Christianity and Islam. In the United States, Hinduism has influenced the vegetarian movement, yoga, meditation and alternative medical treatments. Add to the list of cultural influences, computer games, social media and movies.