Text 24] Krsna Is the Source of All Incarnations 161

sutah—the son of Ajijana (Lord Buddha); kikafesu—in the province of
Gaya (Behar); bhavisyati—will take place.

TRANSLATION

Then, in the beginning of Kali-yuga, the Lord will appear as Lord
Buddha, the son of Afijana, in the province of Gaya, just for the purpose
of deluding those who are envious of the faithful theist.

PURPORT

Lord Buddha, a powerful incarnation of the Personality of Godhead,
appeared in the province of Gaya (Bihar) as the son of Afijana, and he
preached his own conception of nonviolence and deprecated even the
animal sacrifices sanctioned in the Vedas. At the time when Lord Buddha
appeared, the people in general were atheistic and preferred animal flesh
to anything else. On the plea of Vedic sacrifice, every place was practically
turned into a slaughterhouse, and animal killing was indulged in unrestrict-
edly. Lord Buddha preached nonviolence, taking pity on the poor animals.
He preached that he did not believe in the tenets of the Vedas and stressed
the adverse psychological effects incurred by animal killing. Less intelligent
men of the age of Kali, who had no faith in God, followed his principle,
and for the time being they were trained in moral discipline and nonvio-
lence, the preliminary steps for proceeding further on the path of God
realization. He deluded the atheists because such atheists who followed his
principles did not believe in God, but they kept their absolute faith in
Lord Buddha who himself was the incarnation of God. Thus the faithless
people were made to believe in God in the form of Lord Buddha. That was
the mercy of Lord Buddha: He made the faithless faithful to him.

Killing of animals before the advent of Lord Buddha was the most
prominent feature of the society. They claimed that these were Vedic
sacrifices. When the Vedas are not accepted through the authoritative
disciplic succession, the casual readers of the Vedas are misled by the
flowery language of that system of knowledge. In the Bhagavad-gita a
comment has been made on such foolish scholars. The foolish scholars of
Vedic literature who do not care to receive the transcendental message
through the transcendental realized sources of disciplic succession are sure
to be bewildered. To them, the ritualistic ceremonies are considered to be
all in all. They have no depth of knowledge, according to the Bhagavad-
gita. The whole system of the Vedas is to lead one gradually to the path of
