Is there any evidence of human incarnation beside what is written in vedic scriptures?

From: Sreyasree saha

hare krsna.is there any evidence of human incarnation beside what is written in vedic scriptures?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Shreyasvi Shaha.
Is there any evidence of human incarnation besides what is written in Vedic scriptures? Answer, I presume that your question means that whether there is evidence for incarnation of God in human form, besides what is written in Vedic scriptures. If that is the question, then the answer is that, yes, if we consider the existence of Krishna, appearance of Krishna in this world, almost all scholars have more or less unanimously agreed that there is undeniable evidence for the historicity of Krishna. That Krishna actually lived on the earth, and Dwaraka was his city, and he was the king over there, or was a member of the kingly family over there.
There is significant archaeological evidence for that. The Dwaraka expeditions off the coast of what we now have as the city of Dwaraka, led by eminent archaeologist Professor Rao, have uncovered many remains, such as plots, and especially coins, with coins and badges, with insignias and symbols similar to what are described in the Mahabharata as having been given to the residents of Dwaraka. So how can we in one sense understand the historicity of Krishna? We have to look at the scriptures, and then we have to see whether what is told in the scriptures can also be vindicated, can also be confirmed by our historical research, and that can comprise an evidence.
Now of course, at a material level, using material evidences, we cannot prove that Krishna is God. Even if God came over here right in front of us now, what logical, mathematical, scientific evidence would prove that he is God for us? Can we put God on a weighing machine and see whether his weight is different from our weight, and then maybe that proves that he is God? So actually, if we are looking for evidence in terms of material science, or in terms of material methods of acquiring knowledge, then the material methods of acquiring knowledge, by their very definition, are limited to the material realm. So when they are limited to the material realm, they can at best tell us about what happened in the material realm.
So even if God came in front of us and he displayed his Vishwaroopa to us, if we rely only on material methods of acquiring knowledge, then we might say, oh, that is just a hallucination that I saw, or this person is just a magician who can trick me and create some magic. So hallucination means the problem was with me, as I imagined something. So magic means that person did something.
But in both cases, the conclusion is that actually, his plain universal form doesn’t prove that he is God. So when a person is too attached to the materialistic attitude, then even if God personally comes in front of him, then also that person will not accept God, as it happened with Duryodhana, when Krishna not only came in front of him, but Krishna also displayed the universal form to him. So every branch of knowledge necessitates a particular methodology for acquiring that knowledge.
This can range from something as simple as, if I want to hear sound, I have to use my ears. I cannot try to find a substitute for the ears and to see if by adding some additional gadgets to my nose or my tongue or my eyes, can I hear the sound. No, I can’t.
So this is a simple everyday example. But similarly, if we want to measure the speed of a particular object, we can’t use a weighing machine for that. We need a speedometer for that.
So at a very advanced level, if you want to measure the speed of electrons in high energy physics experiments, where they have accelerators which try to bring electrons to the speed of light, now practically speaking, we have no meter that can actually show the speed of those electrons. What we essentially have is the inference from a set of observations, because actually we can’t even observe the electron going from one point and reaching the other point. What we observe is certain phenomena which indicates the electron has left, and certain phenomena which indicates the electron has arrived.
And a certain set of inferences which enable us to conclude that the electron which has arrived is the same as the electron that had left. So if we want an alternative for measuring the speed of electrons, then apart from the methodologies provided by high energy physics, we can’t have any other methodology. So when we look at the evidence for the incarnation of God in the human species, what can we look for? We can look for at best some historical remains, some archaeological features.
Ultimately how do we know about ancient history? We know it primarily from books, secondarily from architecture, thirdly from archaeology, and fourthly possibly from astronomy. It is more specifically called as archaeastronomy. That means if there are books about ancient times, we can know from those.
So the Vedic literature are books like that, so that is one valid way of knowing. Beyond that archaeology, as I said, there is a good amount of evidence that Krishna was a historical person. Now, in Vrindavan, there is a place called Govardhan Hill.
But we don’t have any evidence in the material sense that Krishna actually rested at Govardhan Hill. So if we want material evidence for the superhuman activities of Krishna, then material evidence will never suffice. Because even if some people were there who saw Krishna, and then they tell others that we saw Krishna lifting Govardhan Hill.
When Bhishma told Shishupal during the time of Rajasuya Yajna, that don’t blaspheme Krishna, and he told how great his power is. So, Shishupal minimized and derided Krishna by saying, what’s so great? You know, a small hill, anybody can lift. Actually Govardhan is not a small hill, and nobody can lift even a small hill for that matter.
But, and there were others who didn’t even believe that Krishna lifted Govardhan Hill. So even at the time of Krishna, the Mahabharata and the Bhagavatam indicate, there were people who heard about Krishna, but who did not accept it, that Krishna had actually lifted Govardhan Hill. So therefore, the best way for us to know about the divinity of Krishna is to check for ourselves the effect of heretically accepting the divinity of Krishna.
So the Vedic scriptures don’t just demand blind faith, they offer us evidence for what they are proposing. So if Krishna is God, and God is the reservoir of all happiness, and connecting with God brings us supreme happiness. So what the Vedic scriptures offer us is that, try out this method.
Try to connect yourselves with God with bhakti, and then experience the fulfillment for yourself. So in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna tells that the evidence for bhakti, as well as for himself, is not pratyaksha, but pratyaksha-vagamam. So in 9.2 in the Bhagavad Gita he says, rāja-vidyā rāja-guhyaṁ pavitram idaṁ uttamam pratyaksha-vagamam dharmyam su-sukhaṁ kartum avayam So he describes this as the king of knowledge, the most confidential knowledge.
Why is it most confidential? There are many reasons. One reason is that it can be understood only through the Vedic literature. It cannot be understood through pratyaksha, through logic, through empirical observation.
But then, that is not blind faith, because there is a methodology to verify it. Pratyaksha-vagamam. We cannot see it practically with our eyes, but we can experience its effects practically in our own lives.
And what is the effect that we will experience? We will experience su-sukhaṁ. We will experience inexplicable sense of peace and joy permeating our hearts and our very beings as we connect ourselves with Krishna devotionally. As we chant His holy name, as we take His darshan, we remember Him devotionally.
And that is the ultimate experiential confirmation and evidence for Krishna’s divinity. And apart from that, there are devotees who are doing research to further establish and correlate the knowledge of modern history with the knowledge that is given in the Vedic literature. And this is an ongoing project.
But as I said, that project in and of itself cannot prove the superhuman activities of Krishna, nor can it prove the divinity of Krishna. These are things that we learn from the Vedic scriptures and we get proof for that both by hearing from the Vedic scriptures and by experiencing ourselves in our lives by applying those principles in our day to day existence.