Lord Buddha

Verse 1.3.24: Lord Buddha is an incarnation of Krishna, but people ask that Buddhism has different principles. Srila Rupa Goswami suggests us to not follow these principles, although Lord Buddha is an incarnation of Krishna.

This is because, one portion of Vedas (karma kanda) supports animal sacrifices, not for eating them, but to give a chance for those old animals to get human form of life. The Vedic mantra's chanted during those sacrifices were very important for the animal being sacrificed to get a human form. But the brahmanas started misusing this and because of that animal killing became prominent.

To stop this, Krishna incarnated as Lord Buddha. 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 nonviolence, 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.

According to the Bhagavad-gita (15.15), the whole system of the Vedas is to lead one gradually to the path of the Supreme Lord. The whole theme of Vedic literature is to know the Supreme Lord, the individual soul, the cosmic situation and the relation between all these items. When the relation is known, the relative function begins, and as a result of such a function the ultimate goal of life or going back to Godhead takes place in the easiest manner.

Therefore to bring back people into the Vedic system, Sankaracharya came. After Buddhism, then came Sankaracharya to preach Mayawada. He brought the people back into believing in the Vedas, but only until the realization of the impersonal form, Brahman platform. That you are God, everyone is God. But truly, both are not right philosophies.

By the mercy of Caitanya Mahaprabhu and other acharyas, Krishna slowly again brought it higher forms of realization, that is of the personal form of God. That is, in this age of Kali, chanting of the Holy name of the Lord, is the one means and way to go back home back to Godhead.