about balarama jayanthi

             balarama jayanthi 

meaning of balarama : bal+ram

                                    bal= strength

also known as Bhalabadra(luckly), Bhaladeva(god of strength),

  Halayudha(plough used as weapon).

He is the elder brother of Krishna(an avatar of the god Vishnu) and is regarded generally as an avatar of Shesha. He is also  considered as the Sankarshana form of Vishnu and the eighth avatar of Vishnu.

                          






In fact 'bala' in Sanskrit refers to 'strength'. Balarama is the elder brother of Lord Krishna. Also he is acknowledged as a manifestation of   Anantha or Adishesha, the divine serpent on whom Vishnu rests.

                                                                                                                  Rohini's husband, Vasudeva, was also married to  Devaki. Immediately after the wedding of Devaki and Vasudeva, a divine voice from the sky  called "Akashvani" predicted the death of Devaki's evil brother Kansa at the hand of "the eighth son of Devaki". Kansa then resolved upon killing all the progeny of Devaki immediately upon birth, and imprisoned the newly-wed couple without further ado. This left the distraught Rohini alone.

Kansa proceeded to personally kill each child born to the imprisoned couple immediately after its birth. In due course, Devaki found  pregnant for a seventh time. However, this seventh child was not to meet the fate of the six previous infants; the unborn child was miraculously transferred from the womb of Devaki to the womb of Rohini, who had long been craving a child of her own. The child thus born was named Balarama, and grew to be a great warrior and support of his younger brother gopala(go means cows, palak means god-Krishna).

nandlal, west bengal
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Rohini actually gave birth to Balarama and raised him. Balarama spent his childhood as a cowherd boy with his brother Krishna and friends. He later married Revati, The daughter of King Raivata, ruler of the Anarta province.Balarama taught both Duryodhana of the Kauravas and Bhima of the Pandavas the art of fighting with a Gadha(mace). When war broke between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, Balarama was equally affectionate to both parties and so decided to be neutral. Eventually when Bhima (of greater strength) defeated Duryodhana (of greater skill) by dealing a blow below the navel with his mace, Balarama threatened to kill Bhima. This was only prevented when Krishna reminded Balarama of Bhima's vow to kill Duryodhana by crushing the very thigh he exposed to his wife Draupadi.

                                                      In the Bhagavata Purana it is described that after Balarama took part in the battle that caused the destruction of the rest of the Yadu dynasty, and after he witnessed the disappearance of Krishna, he then sat down in a meditative state and departed from this world by producing a great white snake from his mouth, and thus he was carried by Sesha in the form of a serpent.

Balarama daughter

Revati and Balarama also had a daughter, Vatsala(or Shashirekha).

seshirekha(vatsala)

Balarama’s two sons

Balarama and his wife had two sons, Nisatha and Ulmuka. Like her husband, Revati was indulgent in wine. They used to drink together, but they never lost their senses.

One day Revati asked her husband, “Do you love me more than wine?”

Balarama said, “Yes, I love you more than wine. Otherwise, I would not have married you. I would have remained satisfied with my wine, my first wife. You are my second wife.”

Revati said, “Oh no, if you were married to your wine before me, I will go back to my parents’ house. I won’t stay with you.”

Balarama said, “Where are your parents? Am I not your all?”

“Certainly you are my all,” Revati replied.

“Stay with your parents here. I shall never hurt you. You are my only wife — my first, last and only wife.”

“My Lord, let us be wise. We must not allow our sons to drink.”

“That is an excellent idea. We must not allow them to drink. When they grow up like us, at that time they can drink if they wish. Now, let them study and become wise. Let them practise sports and become strong. Let them pray and meditate. Let them be physically, mentally and spiritually strong. Our children will be strong in every way,” said Balarama.

“Yes, my Lord, I am sure your wish will be fulfilled. What you envision is coming from your third eye and I have implicit faith in what you say.”

Balarama said, “Our children will be good and they will please us. For that I will give you all credit, for it is you who will do everything for them. Because of you, they will become great and good. I know what I am. I am always preoccupied in my own world, so I know I will do next to nothing for them. It is you who will do everything for them. And for that I am and I shall always remain grateful to you.”

“No, my Lord,” said Revati, “your inner blessings and inner guidance will guide the three of us always.”

Ninety-nine per cent of the task of the incarnation of the Yadava Brothers was over after the great Kurukshetra war. One per cent remained still. The brothers saw clearly the deterioration in the moral standard of their clan in DWARAKA. Dwaraka became very prosperous. Krishna once said to Guru Sandipini that too much prosperity was not good. It has become true. The Yadavas in general became highly conceited. They forgot the norms of conduct on should observe in one's daily life. They showed little or no respect to religious rituals. They began to treat elders and venerable people with scant courtesy. Above all they took to drinking and became addicts to it.

Some sages came to Dwaraka at that time. Some young yadavas wanted to play a trick on them. So they dressed up a young man as a pregnant lady and conducting him to the sages asked them as to what could she would give birth to. The sages understood the mischief by their intuition and said "The man-woman will deliver and iron club and that would be the cause for the extinction of the whole clan except Balarama and Krishna." Then they went their way.

As was predicted by the sages the next day an iron club emerged out of the body of the young man. Out of fear the Yadavas cut the iron rod into small pieces and spread them scattering over a vast area on the sandy shores of Prabhasa. In course of time they grew into trees with very strong iron like stems.

Krishna saw how the manner of living of the Yadavas was growing from bad to worse. He wanted to give them a change of place with some religious touch. So he announced once fine morning that a grand festival propitiating the Gods would be celebrated on the sea shore near Prabhasa. He wanted all the Yadavas to move to the place.

During the festival the Yadavas drank to excess. In that drunken state an insulting word of someone become the cause for a terrible and senseless internecine fight among themselves. They pulled out the trees that had grown nearby in their drunken fury and with their stems beat each other and killed each other. After some time no one was alive.

Krishna came and saw the vast seashore strewn with the corpses of these men of his clan. This happened exactly thirty six years after Kurukshetra war, of course according to the decrees of Destiny.

Mahabalipuram ,Tamilnadu (balarama)

He thought of his brother Balarama and he was able to spot him out lying flat on the sands at a distance. As he was looking on, Krishna saw a huge thousand headed serpent issuing out of his brother's mouth and disappearing in the horizon.

Thus Balarama left his mortal coil just before Krishna so as to keep HIS COSMIC BED OF ANANTA ready when the LORD arrived to HIS domain.

Ninety-nine per cent of the task of the incarnation of the Yadava Brothers was over after the great Kurukshetra war. One per cent remained still. The brothers saw clearly the deterioration in the moral standard of their clan in DWARAKA. Dwaraka became very prosperous. Krishna once said to Guru Sandipini that too much prosperity was not good. It has become true. The Yadavas in general became highly conceited. They forgot the norms of conduct on should observe in one's daily life. They showed little or no respect to religious rituals. They began to treat elders and venerable people with scant courtesy. Above all they took to drinking and became addicts to it.

Some sages came to Dwaraka at that time. Some young yadavas wanted to play a trick on them. So they dressed up a young man as a pregnant lady and conducting him to the sages asked them as to what could she would give birth to. The sages understood the mischief by their intuition and said "The man-woman will deliver and iron club and that would be the cause for the extinction of the whole clan except Balarama and Krishna." Then they went their way.

As was predicted by the sages the next day an iron club emerged out of the body of the young man. Out of fear the Yadavas cut the iron rod into small pieces and spread them scattering over a vast area on the sandy shores of Prabhasa. In course of time they grew into trees with very strong iron like stems.

Krishna saw how the manner of living of the Yadavas was growing from bad to worse. He wanted to give them a change of place with some religious touch. So he announced once fine morning that a grand festival propitiating the Gods would be celebrated on the sea shore near Prabhasa. He wanted all the Yadavas to move to the place.

During the festival the Yadavas drank to excess. In that drunken state an insulting word of someone become the cause for a terrible and senseless internecine fight among themselves. They pulled out the trees that had grown nearby in their drunken fury and with their stems beat each other and killed each other. After some time no one was alive.

Krishna came and saw the vast seashore strewn with the corpses of these men of his clan. This happened exactly thirty six years after Kurukshetra war, of course according to the decrees of Destiny.

He thought of his brother Balarama and he was able to spot him out lying flat on the sands at a distance. As he was looking on, Krishna saw a huge thousand headed serpent issuing out of his brother's mouth and disappearing in the.........