Avatars of Brahma: Stories of India's Greatest Yogis

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While the Puranas mention that Lord Brahma becomes an avatar whenever Lord Vishnu comes to Earth to establish Dharma, it is in the Dasam Granth (one of the holy books of the Sikhs) that the avatars are actually listed. The common point in Hinduism and Sikhism regarding the avatars of Brahma is that they are seen as great thinkers and teachers.
In this book, the authors-who run the popular website Scientific Monk-delve into the lives of each avatar, their works and the philosophies they presented. They explain how the avatars of Brahma help us understand the Indian thought process and our intellectual heritage, and give readers an insight into the works of India's greatest yogis from a twenty-first-century world view.
This is a unique book, narrated with a distinctive perspective, and filled with interesting stories and lessons about a little-known aspect of mythology-the avatars of the Creator.

Kaudinya Arpan is from Sikkim. He is a traditional meditation practitioner and a researcher of artificial intelligence (AI) in environment and public health. He has a distinct perspective on Eastern and Western philosophies and science, with a formal education spanning traditional and modern schools. He runs the popular website, Scientific Monk.
Pareekshit Dahal, from Sikkim, is a medical student with a keen interest in exploring and writing about culture, spirituality and metaphysics. He is also a fitness enthusiast working to spread positivity and promote a healthy lifestyle in the community.

Why is this book unique?
Avatars of Brahma: India's Greatest Yogis takes its inspiration from the Dasam Granth of the Sikhs. The Dasam Granth is one of the sacred books in Sikhism and was written by the tenth Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh, who is majorly credited with the formation of Khalsa, the initiated Sikhs. The Dasam Granth provides an insight into the avatars of various entities in the Indian tradition and, along with them, it lists out the avatars of Lord Brahma. The main peculiarity of this book is that it attempts to delve into a topic that has not been explored by other authors, be they ancient or modern. While the Puranas and epics tell us the stories concerning the geopolitics of ancient Bharat up until the beginning of the Kali Yuga, the Dasan Granth attempts to trace the lineage of the archaic clans existing in ancient Bharat-which are also mentioned in the Vedas and the Puranas-until medieval Bharat and the birth of the poet himself.
One may ask why the narrative of a Sikh Guru is considered a valid source of knowledge here. Well, the answer to this question is that we comply with the philosophies discussed in the Dasam Granth, which clearly mentions the sources of valid knowledge through the perspective of the various ancient philosophies of Bharat. Nyaya Darshana emphasizes that valid knowledge (Pramanas) can be obtained from the following sources:
Pratyaksha (meaning, evident)
Anumana (meaning, speculation)
Upamana (meaning, basic existing perception)
Shabda (views of revered intellectuals)
In this book, we have mainly drawn inspiration from the method of Shabda-meaning the views and opinions of a revered individual, in our case, Guru Gobind Singh.
Further, there are two more valid sources of knowledge, namely Arthapatti (postulation) and Anupalabdhi (cognitive proof). From these six Pramanas, different philosophical schools have considered either two, three, four or even all six types to create core concepts.