Balabhadra

Epithet of the mythic hero Balarama,
the god Krishna’s older brother.
Although he is a fairly minor mythic
figure, he is important for his connection with the temple of Jagannath in
the city of Puri. The temple’s presiding deity is Jagannath (“Lord of the
World”), a tribal god who has been
assimilated into the Hindu pantheon
as a form of Krishna. The image of
Jagannath appears together with two
other images, Balabhadra and their
sister Subhadra, and the three deities
invariably appear as a group.
The poet Jayadeva, in his list of the
ten avatars (“divine incarnations”)
typically associated with the god
Vishnu, named Balabhadra as the
eighth avatar, the place normally
occupied by Krishna. According to
Jayadeva, Jagannath/Krishna is not a
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Bajrang Dal
form of Vishnu but the Ultimate Reality
from whom all the avatars spring.