Hindu views on evolution

Hindus have found support for, or ideas foreshadowing evolutionary ideas, in scriptures, such as the mytheme of Dashavatara, the incarnations of Vishnu starting with a fish.

Reception in India
In India, there were minimal references to Darwinism in the 1800s. While elements of Victorian England opposed the idea of Darwinism, Hindus already had the present notion of common ancestry between humans and animals. While the creation–evolution controversy has seen much debate in US, Middle East and parts of Africa, it is an insignificant issue in India, because of its Hindu-majority population.

Most Indian scientists accept biological evolution and it is taught in Indian universities.

Spiritual evolution
Many Hindu reformers compare the Samkhya philosophy, specifically the term parinama and the concept of evolutes, with Darwinism. David Lagourie Gosling has suggested that Swami Vivekananda based most of his cosmological and biological ideas on Samkhya. Influenced by western thought and esotericism, Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo developed a view on reincarnation in which an involution of the Divine into matter takes place, and the person has to evolve over multiple lives until the Divine gains recognition of its true nature and liberation is attained.

Hindu creationism
Hindu creationism also known as Vedic creationism is a type of religious old earth creationism. Historian of science Ronald Numbers has commented that "Hindu Creationists have insisted on the antiquity of humans, who they believe appeared fully formed as long, perhaps, as trillions of years ago." The views of Hindu creationism are based on the Vedas, which depict an extreme antiquity of the universe and history of the earth.

The emergence of modern Vedic creationism has been linked to Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj. In his Satyarth Prakash, Saraswati promoted anti-evolutionary views and took a literal reading of the Vedas. He argued that God designed the physical bodies of all species 1.96 billions years ago on earth and on other planets at the beginning of the present cosmic cycle. He stated that God conjoined the bodies with pre-existing souls and that different species were created and distributed to souls in accord to their karma from the previous cosmic cycle. Saraswati in a public lecture condemned Darwinian evolution but misunderstood common descent by questioning why monkeys no longer evolve into men.

Vedic creationism holds a view of the world derived largely from the Bhagavad Gita. It was promoted by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada the founder of ISKCON who referred to Charles Darwin and his followers as "rascals". Vedic creationism was also promoted by ISKCON devotees Michael Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, authors of the 1993 book Forbidden Archeology. They argue that human beings are distinct species that have existed for billions of years. Vedic creationists are known to search for anomalies and reinterpret the fossil record to make it fit with their metaphysical assumptions.

Vanara


The Sanskrit epics of the Hindus mention several exotic creatures including ape-like humanoids. The Ramayana speaks of the Vanaras, an ape-like species (ape-men) with human intelligence, that existed millions of years ago alongside modern humans. Michael Cremo, a Hindu creationist, states: "The idea of ape-men is not something that was invented by Darwinists of the nineteenth century. Long before that, the ancient Sanskrit writings were speaking of creatures with apelike bodies, humanlike intelligence, and a low level of material culture. For example, the Ramayana speaks of the Vanaras, a species of apelike men that existed millions of years ago. But alongside these ape-men existed humans of our type. The relationship was one of coexistence rather than evolution."

Dashavatara
The order of the Dashavatara (ten principal avatars of the god Vishnu) is interpreted to convey Darwin's evolution. British geneticist and evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane opined that they are a true sequential depiction of the great unfolding of evolution. According to them, like the evolutionary process itself, the first avatar of God is a fish - Matsya, which depicts aquatic life, then comes the aquatic reptile turtle, Kurma, which depicts creatures moving to land, then a mammal - the boar Varaha, then Narasimha, a man-lion being, which is sometimes taken to mean creatures like Okapi, Archaeopteryx, and others, then comes Vamana, the dwarf hominid. Then Parashurama depicts humans when they were in the caveman stage. And then, Rama depicts the rise of civilization and kingdoms. (Sometimes, when Balarama is taken into account, he is taken to represent the growth of agriculture.) Krishna is taken to symbolize the growth of art and crafts. The tenth avatar Kalki is believed to appear in the future, prophesied to end the present age of the Kali Yuga.