Hindus have found support for, or ideas foreshadowing, evolutionary concepts in scriptures, such as the mytheme of the Dashavatara, the incarnations of Vishnu beginning with a fish.

Reception in India: In India, there were few references to Darwinism in the 1800s. Although elements of Victorian England opposed Darwinism, some Hindu traditions already contained notions of common ancestry between humans and animals. While the creation–evolution controversy has been widely debated in the United States, the Middle East, and parts of Africa, it is an insignificant issue in India, largely because of its Hindu-majority population. Most Indian scientists accept biological evolution, and it is taught in Indian universities.

Spiritual evolution: Many Hindu reformers compare the Samkhya philosophy—specifically the term parinama and the concept of evolutes—with Darwinism. David Lagourie Gosling has suggested that Swami Vivekananda based much of his cosmological and biological thought on Samkhya. Influenced by Western thought and esotericism, Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo developed a view of reincarnation in which an involution of the Divine into matter takes place and the person must evolve over multiple lives until the Divine recognizes its true nature and liberation is attained.

Hindu creationism: Hindu creationism, also known as Vedic creationism, is a form of religious old-earth creationism. Historian of science Ronald Numbers has commented that "Hindu Creationists have insisted on the antiquity of humans, who they believe appeared fully formed as long, perhaps, as trillions of years ago." The views of Hindu creationism are based on the Vedas, which depict an extreme antiquity of the universe and the history of the Earth. The emergence of modern Vedic creationism has been linked to Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj. In his book Satyarth Prakash, Saraswati promoted anti-evolutionary views and took a literal reading of the Vedas. He argued that God designed the physical bodies of all species 1.96 billion years ago on Earth and on other planets at the beginning of the present cosmic cycle. He stated that God conjoined the bodies with pre-existing souls and that different species were created and assigned to souls in accordance with their karma from the previous cosmic cycle. In a public lecture, Saraswati condemned Darwinian evolution but misunderstood the concept of common descent by asking why monkeys no longer evolve into humans. Vedic creationism holds a view of the world derived largely from the Bhagavad Gita. It was promoted by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of ISKCON, who referred to Charles Darwin and his followers as "rascals." Vedic creationism was also promoted by ISKCON devotees Michael Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, authors of the 1993 book Forbidden Archeology. They argue that human beings are a distinct species that has existed for billions of years. Vedic creationists are known to search for anomalies and reinterpret the fossil record to make it fit with their metaphysical assumptions.

Vanara: The Sanskrit epics of the Hindus mention several exotic creatures, including ape-like humanoids. The Ramayana speaks of the Vanaras, an ape-like species (ape-men) with human intelligence that existed millions of years ago alongside modern humans.

Dashavatara: The order of the Dashavatara (the ten principal avatars of the god Vishnu) is interpreted by some to convey Darwinian evolution. British geneticist and evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane opined that they are a true sequential depiction of the great unfolding of evolution. According to this interpretation, like the evolutionary process itself, the first avatar is a fish, Matsya, depicting aquatic life; then the aquatic reptile turtle, Kurma, depicting creatures moving to land; then a mammal, the boar Varaha; then Narasimha, a man-lion being, sometimes taken to mean creatures like the Okapi or Archaeopteryx; then Vamana, the dwarf hominid. Parashurama depicts humans in a caveman stage, followed by Rama, who depicts the rise of civilization and kingdoms. Sometimes, when Balarama is taken into account, he is taken to represent the growth of agriculture. Krishna is taken to symbolize the growth of art and crafts. The 9th avatar, Kalki, is not yet born. Hinduism mentions Kalki will be born at the end of Kali Yuga; the 9th avatar is expected to come during the later part of the Suvarna Kaliyuga.

See also: Creation myth; Ichthys; Relationship between religion and science.

References / Further reading:

Evolution theory
- C. Mackenzie Brown, Hindu Perspectives on Evolution: Darwin, Dharma, and Design (Routledge Hindu Studies Series), Routledge, 2012.
- C. Mackenzie Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism: Evolutionary Theories in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and East Asian Cultural Contexts, Springer Nature, 2020.

Creationism
- Cavanaugh, Michael A. (1983). A Sociological Account of Scientific Creationism: Science, True Science, Pseudoscience. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
- Eve, Harold (1990). Creationist Movement in Modern America. Twayne Publishers.
- "Vedic creationism"
- Cremo, Michael A., and Richard L. Thompson, Forbidden Archeology: The Full Unabridged Edition. Torchlight Publishing; 2nd rev. ed., January 1998.
- Cremo, Michael A., Forbidden Archeology's Impact: How a Controversial New Book Shocked the Scientific Community and Became an Underground Classic. Torchlight Publishing, January 1998.
- Cremo, Michael A., The Hidden History of the Human Race (The Condensed Edition of Forbidden Archeology). Cremo. Torchlight Publishing, May 15, 1999. ISBN 0892133252.

Hindu nationalism.

Nanda, Meera. Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and the Making of Hindu Nationalism in India. Rutgers University Press, 2003.

External links:
Hinduism and Science — Editorial in The Hindu, April 20, 2004.
Dharma vs. Darwin? — Swami B.V. Tripurari. Beliefnet article describing Hindu perspectives on evolution.
The Perils of Vedic "Science" — Meera Nanda. Beliefnet article on Hindu science and evolutionary theories.