If only we learned from our past - Vishnu and Darwin

There is a famous quite by a Spanish philosopher George Santayana - "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" - very true indeed. We humans seem to have a penchant to not learn from our past experiences, and more importantly from those of others - be it our daily lives, or our civilization. In most cases, we tend to ignore some very interesting thoughts that were penned by our ancestors, discounting them as ancient, irrelevant, or useless.

A prime example is a concept that is engrained in the Hindu religion, called the 'Dasavataram of Vishnu' or '10 avatars of Vishnu'. Vishnu, in Hindu philosophy is the God of protection and is one of the three primary deities (trimurthis) - Brahma (Creator), Vishnu (Protector), and Siva (Destroyer).

The thought is that Vishnu, being responsible for protecting beings in Earth, takes an appropriate form (avatar) once a while (usually once a 'yuga' or epoch) to provide guidance by example. The 10 avatars of Vishnu has been documented heavily in the Hindu scripts - I don't know how far it dates back, but have at least seen them in sculptures that age back to 1000AD and potentially beyond.

What is most interesting to note is that the 10 avatars of Vishnu coincide with Darwin's concept of evolution - ages before Darwin came up with the theory. I was first made aware of the connection when my brother wrote an article on it a few years back. Here are the 10 avatars, their symbolism, and my interpretation of the symbolism.

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dasavatar,_19th_century.jpg

1. Matsya
Fish
Aquatic (first species to evolve on earth)

2. Kurma
Tortoise
Amphibian (movement from the ocean to the land)

3. Varaha
Boar
Land creature (proper evolved mammal on land)

4. Narasimha
Half man, Half lion
A combination of man and beast (symbolises the transition from animal to human)

5. Vamana
Child
Child (Starting signs of intelligence and thought)

6. Parasurama
Plough-wielding man
Farmer (Starting of agricultural evolution and use of Iron)

7. Rama
King (with bow and arrow)
Fully evolved human (Use of bow and arrows, Evolution of governance)

8. Krishna
King (and peacemaker)
War and Peace (Evolution of politics)

9. Buddha
Saint
Peace (Establishment of a peaceful system. Emphasis on current life instead of moksha)

10. Kalki
Man on horse
??? (supposed to take form by end of this current epoch - in some sense signaling apocalypse and facilitating humans beyond the apocalypse)

As with any interpretation, you might say that I am fitting a theory into facts than the other way around, but I feel that the coincidence is just too strong to dismiss it as mythology. I wonder how many other such concepts are hidden in the earlier scriptures that we have discounted as mythology or paganism.

Also of interesting note is that out of the 10 avatars, only 3 are exclusively worshipped (Rama, Krishna, and Buddha - all of them in the most recent epochs) and 2 in some areas of India (Narasimha and Varaha), while the remaining 5 are more of historic interest.