James Cameron's avatar movie slightly based off hinduism?

[patience]

Hello,

The word "avatar" literally means reincarnation of Vishnu in Hinduism. He's always depicted as being blue colored in paintings and temples, and all the characters in the avatar movie are blue. Coincidence, or planned?

[englandnz]

I'd say it is most likely a coincidence, but perhaps a fact that they (the people behind Avatar) stumbled onto afterwards. I recall from somewhere that Cameron made them blue simply because it is such a rare colour in nature on Earth, so makes the Navi seem more alien to us.

 

From wiki

In Hinduism, Avatar or Avatāra (Devanagari अवतार, Sanskrit for "descent" [viz., from heaven to earth]) refers to a deliberate descent of a deity from heaven to earth, and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation", but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation".

 

This would seem to be where the modern sense of the word comes from, and also then the title of the movie (ie meaning appearence)

It is still a very interesting parallel though.

[Unstream]

Here's the definition of avatar:

embodiment: a new personification of a familiar idea; "the embodiment of hope"; "the incarnation of evil"; "the very avatar of cunning"

 

So, while it could be an embodiment for Vishnu, it could also be an embodiment for anybody, which essentially was what the human-navis were.

 

I always thought the Navi's beliefs and attitudes were very similar to the Native Americans.

[CAV of Gang Green]

So did I Unstream.

 

Think, James Cameron used much inspiration from many things, Hinduism could be one, but Native American seems more obvious.