about balaraamar avathaaram
From the Bhakti List Archives
• June 3, 1995
I was looking at the prapatti mailing list archives (while running some FEM simulations on the background:-) and came upon the discussion related to whether balarama avathaaram is mentioned anywhere in prabandham. I also read the quote from thiru mangai aazhvaar, provided by Dileepan. paripaadal kadavuL vaazhththu (invocation) begins with an address to balaraaman. It is only after this that krishna is mentioned! This is the only work that I know of where balaraaman is given precedence over krishna. Well, not exactly. Immediately in the next paragraph, while praising krishna, the author (whose name is not known) says: "you are younger by birth to balarama yet you are superior to him by your qualities" A bit strange to compare these two though. Many northern traditions very conveniently leave out balaraaman from the 10 avathars and rather include buddhaa! No offense meant to buddhaa but this just doesn't seem right! If I am not mistaken gaudiya vaishnavas also do not count buddhaa as one of the avatars. The vedic revivalism mainly targetted the buddhists and jains and not a single puraana (well, at least the saatvik ones) talks about buddha as an avatar of vishnu. I wonder how this idea came into being though in the north. --badri -------------------------------------------------- S.Badrinarayanan Graduate Student Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Cornell University --------------------------------------------------
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