Dasa Avatars

[Malolan Cadambi]

> Even though Rama and Parashurama were concurrent avatars, they are
assigned
> the chronology of seven and six respectively, because Parashurama was born
> before Rama. So if Balarama is an avatar of Vishnu, then Krishna would be
> the ninth avatar, because Balarma was born before Krishna. But Krishna is
in
> general considered the eighth avatar only. (Many consider Balarama to be
an
> avatar of Adishesha just like Lakshmana in Ramayana.)

Every Acharya, be it Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhava, Abhinavashankara consider
Krishna to be the 9th avatAra of Narayana. Siddhartha Gautama (aka Buddha)
is not considered one of the avatAra-s. This identification came during the
11th - 15th centuries in North and Northeast India. One of the reasons was
to foster a unity between Indic religions (Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism)
against a semitic one, which has a recorded history of destruction of both
Buddhist and hindu places of worship.

As I said, SG is not an avatAra of Vishnu. The identification and
popularisation was by Jayadeva and most parts of Uttar Pradesh, Nepal, West
Bengal have a hallowed tradition of a syncretism between both faiths. This
is very unlike what happened in the West, where even a small theological
argument lead to want on destruction.

Regards,

Malolan