How can a deity be forced to reincarnate pieces of itself thousands of years apart?

[Erebus]

The ancient deity known as Shiva exists on the astral plane and intends to cross over into the mortal world to subjugated it to its rule. However, gods are far too powerful to exist on the mortal plane, as their power would disrupt this aspect of reality and ultimately destroy it. As such, gods need to limit their power by taking a human form through a process known as reincarnation. Through this process, a god is born on the mortal plane as a human, but contains the soul and abilities of the deity. The human form is used as a vessel, which is built specifically to hold a god's spirit in order to keep it contained. These vessels are called avatars, and allow the deity to traverse the mortal world without risking its destruction.

No single avatar is able to possess the entirety of Shiva's soul, as the deity is too vast and powerful to be contained in one shell. Therefore, Shiva must reincarnate pieces of itself through several forms, ending with a total of seven. Once all avatars enter the mortal plane, Shiva's soul can be said to have completely crossed over. At a designated time, these seven will combine and reconstruct Shiva's soul, allowing it to take its true form in reality. With the deity at full strength, it can now rule the plane and exert its true power. However, instead of being reincarnated all at once in one specific location, these avatars have been born millennia apart, with many generations passing between them and at various places. This has greatly complicated Shiva's plan, as it has forced it to drag out its goals over thousands of years.

What would prevent a deity from reincarnating itself all at once?

 

[Chasejxyz]

Shiva like the Hindu god? The one that over 250 million people have as a primary diety?

 

[Queshire]

No, the reccurring Final Fantasy summon.

 

[pmmg]

Perhaps other gods acting to make it difficult.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

If no avatar can possess the entirety of Shiva's soul, maybe no time can either. Perhaps the complete incarnation of Shiva would shatter time itself.

You've said yourself that gods are too powerful to appear on the mortal plane, because if they did, they'd destroy it. It stands to reason that if every Shiva avatar were united in one place and time, uniting all of Shiva, that would be Shiva on the mortal plane and the mortal plane would cease to function the way it does.

That doesn't necessarily mean all physical matter would disappear. But maybe time would, in a literal manifestation of "all times are now."

It could be a law of the universe that no time can contain more than one avatar of Shiva.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

Perhaps it takes too much energy from the world to be done all at once. The reincarnation speed could be based on the amount of prayer/worship being given. The reincarnation could be connected to some type of celestial event that occurs over thousands of years period.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

The reincarnation could be connected to some type of celestial event that occurs over thousands of years period.

Ooh, great idea!

Perhaps the full reincarnation requires a once in hundreds of thousands of years celestial event while the individual incarnations of the avatars require a celestial event that occurs once in a millennium, millennium and a half.

 

[Almyrigan Hero]

First of all, minor language quip: "reincarnation" implies a mortal being returning after death.

Perhaps for a being of Shiva's power, the process of creating even a single avatar "wounds" the mortal plane a bit? This doesn't cause permanent damage to the world, but spacetime/nature/the mana stream needs a while to heal before another avatar is made. If it's not given that time, <important world-perpetuating force> could be irreversibly corrupted or destroyed.

 

[WooHooMan]

I would assume that this being wouldn’t perceive linear time like mortals do since they exist outside of material reality. So, the god (I’d strongly recommend a name change, btw) may have incarnated in a single moment in the astral plane but that translates to seven different moments in the material plane.

You know, it’s all relative. A being who experiences time nonlinearly wouldn’t perceive a difference between Monday and Friday.