The avatar list is a piece of theological engineering. It gathers deities and heroes who were originally independent — a boar god, a lion god, a Tamil-influenced cowherd, a north Indian king — and files them as one being's successive appearances, which is how Vaishnavism grew by absorption rather than conquest. The inclusion of the Buddha is the sharpest example: some Puranas frame it as Vishnu appearing to deliberately mislead the unworthy into a false religion, which is not flattery, and other later texts soften it into genuine compassion for animals. Buddhists have consistently rejected the annexation. Kalki, the tenth, has not come, and the future-tense entry has been used politically more than once, most recently by godmen who have claimed the slot. The evolution reading — fish, amphibian, mammal, half-man, man — was popularised by nineteenth-century reformers answering Darwin, and it is a retrofit, but it is a retrofit Hindus enjoy and it is repeated constantly.