Lean more: Authority and Pramana on Gaura-lila

Bhagavān assumes the role of an avatāra in two ways — through His intrinsic potency, and through His extrinsic potency consisting of the three guṇas.

The first type of avatāra includes manifestations, such as Matsya and Kūrma. All of these are worshipable forms. The second type of avatāra specifically refers to the three forms that are related to the three guṇas. Among these three, only Viṣṇu is worshipable.

Viṣṇu is called sattva-tanu, or one whose body is purely of the nature of sattva. This sattva is not that of phenomenal being but belongs to His intrinsic potency of transcendental being-existence (viśuddha-sattva), as is said, “Viṣṇu is directly the Supreme Person, free of the guṇas and beyond prakṛti” (SB 10.88.5).

For this reason, Viṣṇu cannot have any material upādhis, since the material energy has no power to delimit Him in any way. As such, by His mere proximity He maintains the cosmos through the illuminating potency of material sattva, all the while remaining indifferent to it.

It is in this sense only that He is called a guṇāvatāra, and thus He is in no way less than a puruṣāvatāra.

Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the original and complete Reality, and He has three types of expansions, described by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in the following verse:

svayaṁ-rūpas tad-ekātma-rūpa āveśa-nāmakaḥity asau trividhaṁ bhāti prapañcātīta-dhāmasu

In the transcendental abodes lying beyond material nature, Śrī Kṛṣṇa exists in three kinds of expansions, called svayaṁ-rūpa, tad-ekātma-rūpa, and āveśa. (LBH 1.11)

ñāna-śaktyādikalayā yatrāviṣṭo janārdanaḥta āveśo nigadyante jivā eva mahattamāḥ

When Śrī Kṛṣṇa pervades a living being with a portion of His opulence, such as energy or knowledge, such a great soul is called an āveśa. (LBH 1.17)

Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has made a minute analysis of the various manifestations of the Lord in his Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta. He there says:

svayaṁ-rūpas tad-ekātma-rūpa āveśa-nāmakaḥity asau trividhaṁ bhāti prapañcātīta-dhāmasu

In the transcendental abodes lying beyond material nature, Śrī Kṛṣṇa exists in three kinds of expansions, called svayaṁ-rūpa, tad-ekātma-rūpa, and āveśa. (LBH 1.11)

Svayaṁ-rūpa is the original form of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, which does not depend on any other form. In this form the Lord sometimes manifests two hands and sometimes four.

The form that is nondifferent in nature from the original one, but appears different owing to personality and pastimes, is called tad-ekātma-rūpa. It is further divided into vilāsa forms, such as Nārāyaṇa, and svāṁśa forms, such as Matsya and Kūrma. These are different from the original form of Śrī Kṛṣṇa in appearance.

When the Lord empowers a particular entity with knowledge or bhakti, those individuals are called āveśa-rūpa. Examples of this are Śeṣa, Nārada, Sanaka and so on.

Kṛṣṇa’s prakāśa manifestations in Vṛndāvana and Dvārakā are in the category of svayaṁ-rūpa. His tad-ekātma-rūpa expansions include his vilāsa forms, such as Śrī Nārāyaṇa, and svāṁśa manifestations, such as Śrī Matsya. There is no difference between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and His prakāsa manifestations. His vilāsa manifestations are almost equal to Him in opulence, but His svāṁśa expansions have less manifest power than His vilāsa forms.

Kṛṣṇa’s āveśa-rūpas, on the other hand, are not viṣṇu-tattvas; they are empowered jīvas. They are not in the same category as Svayaṁ Bhagavān or tad-ekātma-rūpa.

There are two categories of āveśāvatāras — bhagavad-āveśāvatāra, pervasion as the Lord directly, and bhagavat-śakti-āveśaavatāra, pervasion as an upholder of one of the Lord’s potencies.

The first type of pervasion induces the living being to identify himself directly as the Lord. The second type of pervasion induces the living being to identify himself as a devotee, and an upholder of the Lord’s potency.

Śrī Kṛṣṇa had a suitable form for each woman and yet these were all one and the same form. All these forms of Bhagavān are His original form, which are called prakāśa manifestations. They are not like His Nārāyaṇa or Vāsudeva expansions. This was the reason for Śrī Nārada’s surprise.

Nārada Muni was himself a great master of yogic power and could perform many extraordinary and miraculous feats. He had the power to expand into kāya-vyūha forms, which look exactly the same and perform identical movements. If Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s expansions were also kāya-vyūha, then Śrī Nārada Muni would not have been amazed. We generally feel surprised when we see something new, some extraordinary act or object that has never previously been experienced.

Śaubhari Muni expanded himself into fifty kāya-vyūha forms in order to marry the fifty daughters of King Mandhātā. Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s 16,000 forms were not this kind of kāya-vyūha expansion. His prakāśa forms could be seen acting differently in different places, but the kāya-vyūha forms of Śaubhari Muni and other powerful yogīs have no such independent functioning capacity. This is confirmed by the statements of Śukadeva Gosvāmī (SB 10.59.42) and Śrī Uddhava (SB 3.3.8),

Anyone who takes birth must die. This natural law is asserted by Kṛṣṇa in Bhagavad Gītā (2.27), “One who has taken birth is sure to die, and after death, birth is certain.” Since Kṛṣṇa took birth, how can He be spared death?

The answer is found in SB 10.3.8, where it is explained that the Lord appeared as the full moon appears in the East. Though the moon is always in the sky, it is visible only to certain people at certain times. Similarly, Śrī Kṛṣṇa is eternally present, but He is visible only during the Dvāparayuga of the twenty-eighth cycle of the seventh Manu.

The Lord is unborn, yet He performs the pastime of birth. Elsewhere in Bhagavad Gītā He says: "Although I am never born and My body never deteriorates, and even though I am the Lord of all living beings, I am situated in My own nature when I appear by My internal potency." (Gītā 4.6)

Kṛṣṇa’s birth is not like that of an ordinary living being, who is ruled by the laws of karma. He is the Īśvara of all living beings. A living entity’s birth is under the control of karma and time, but Bhagavān is their master.

One may counter that the living being does not take birth either. His accepting a body is designated as birth, but there is in fact no birth for the self. What then is so special about Kṛṣṇa’s birth? To this the Lord says that He is avayayātmā: His body is transcendental and never deteriorates; thus, He never changes bodies. Moreover, He takes birth by His own energy, ātma-māyā, and not through the agency of the material energy or under the influence of karma. Even when He appears to take birth, He remains in His original svarūpa and does not accept a material body. Hence, there is considerable difference between Bhagavān’s birth and that of the living being. As a result, Kṛṣṇa calls His birth divya, or transcendental (janma karmaca me divyam, Gītā 4.9). His birth, which resembles that of ordinary human beings, is His līlā, or pastime, enacted for the pleasure of devotees like Devakī.

Svabhāvajā śraddhā, or faith born of nature, refers to the natural inclination or tendency of people in the lower guṇas to have greater faith and devotion towards worship of lesser deities rather than Śrī Viṣṇu.