about balaraamar avathaaram

[Guest guest]

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

 

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S.Badrinarayanan

Graduate Student

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Cornell University

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[Guest guest]

Please ignore the first paragraph in my previous mail. The

archives talked about parasuraama and I wanted to make a

posting about balaraama. In any case, the rest of the posting

should make sense (hopefully).

 

-- a semi-conscious badri

 

-----------------

S.Badrinarayanan

Graduate Student

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Cornell University

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[Guest guest]

Re: acceptance of Buddha in North

 

I think it probably began around the time of Jayadeva

(c.11th-12th centuries), because he is the first one

that I know of who included Buddha among the 10 avataaras.

Buddha was reckoned an avataara earlier, but in a

diabolical and rather offensive sense. Some puraanas

say that the Lord took the form of Buddha to destroy

evil elements in society by confusing them and taking

them away from the Vedas.

 

Anyway, in Jayadeva's daSaavataara stotram, Buddha

displaces Krishna! The rationale at the end of the

stotra is that Krishna as the Parabrahman takes on

all 10 forms, so there is no need to count him separately.

I am told that orthodox pundits, including the

Gaudiya Vaishnavas (of which the Hare Krishnas

are a branch), still do not accept the inclusion of Buddha

in the list of 'good' avataaras.

 

I do not know the origin of the inclusion.

 

Mani