Ancient India | प्राचीन भारत

Happy Radhashrami

It is one of the busiest pilgrim towns of the region, famous for its rich bhoga of butter and sugar, for Baladeva Chhaṭh today, and for the riotous Huraṅgā the day after Holi, when the women of the town drive the men back with whips of twisted cloth in the temple courtyard. In the Jagannātha tradition of Oḍiśā he is Balabhadra, the eldest of the three deities of Puri, standing on the right as Jagannātha's elder…

The Mausala Parva of the Mahābhārata describes what Kṛṣṇa saw when he came to that place. His brother sat still beneath a tree. From his mouth came forth a great white serpent with a thousand hoods and red eyes, vast as a mountain, which moved down into the ocean. The Ocean himself and the great nāgas, Vāsuki, Takṣaka and the rest, came to receive him with honour. The one who had come up out of the depths as the…

At the wedding of Aniruddha, Rukmī, Kṛṣṇa's brother-in-law and a lifelong enemy of the Yadus, challenged Balarāma to dice, cheated, and with the king of Kaliṅga openly mocked him as a cowherd who knew nothing of the game. When Balarāma won fairly and Rukmī claimed the victory, Balarāma killed Rukmī with his club and knocked out the teeth of the laughing king of Kaliṅga (Bhāgavata 10.61). Kṛṣṇa's son Sāmba carried…

At Tālavana, the palm forest, a demon in the form of a huge donkey named Dhenuka and his kin kept the ripe fruit for themselves and let no one enter. The boys wanted the fruit. Balarāma went in and shook the trees. Dhenuka charged and kicked him in the chest with his hind legs. Balarāma seized him by the hind legs, whirled him round and flung him dead into the crown of a palm, which crashed down on its neighbours…

Later traditions have seen the same power descending again in teachers. The Śrīvaiṣṇavas hold Rāmānujācārya to be an incarnation of Ādiśeṣa, and his early name Iḷaiyāḻvār, the younger lord, was given to recall Lakṣmaṇa. Tradition likewise honours Patañjali the grammarian as Śeṣa's descent, which is why he is shown with a serpent's lower body. The Gauḍīya tradition sees Balarāma again in Nityānanda Prabhu, the…

The Gauḍīya ācāryas extend this into a lineage of cosmic forms. For them Balarāma is the first expansion of Kṛṣṇa, from whom comes Mahā-Saṅkarṣaṇa in the spiritual sky, and from him Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu who lies on the causal ocean and breathes out the universes, then Garbhodakaśāyī within each universe, then Kṣīrodakaśāyī the indwelling Lord, and finally Śeṣa who both carries the planets and serves as the Lord's…