Incarnation

The vaishnavas consider God to be a person. They believe that he, whom they call Vishnú, shows in the Earth by means of ups and downs, that is to say, embodiments in human form.
Two big Vishnú ups and downs have been Krishna and Râma Chandra. These lived in a very distant antiquity although some of his faithful doubt that they have had really a historical existence.
Au coeur give Himalayas, of Alexandra David-Neel, 1949.

This is the origin of the word incarnation, today rescued of the negligence for a movie. I do not refuse to write the curious and realistic justification of a supposed recent incarnation called Chaitanya that they told to Alexandra David-Neel:

God is far from us. Râma and especially the kind and tender Krishna they are closer. As for Chaitanya no doubt can appear with regard to his reality. He lived, we know where and how. He is a God but at the same time he is a man, like us. Loving him our love thirst can be satisfied, then, to God.

Alexandra David-Neel was the first European woman who managed to visit Lhassa, somewhere near 1924. The said book narrates his trip for Nepal in the winter 1912. He died in 1969 to 101 years of age.