Krishna's Elder Brother, and a Seam in the Avatar Lists

Balarama is the elder brother of Krishna, fair-skinned where Krishna is dark, carrying a plough (his weapon and the mark of an agricultural god) and a pestle, strong, fond of wine, and quick to anger. His place in the standard reckoning of Vishnu's avatars is revealingly unstable: lists that make the Buddha the ninth avatar count Balarama as the eighth, while other traditions identify Balarama instead as an incarnation of the cosmic serpent Shesha and give Krishna himself the eighth place, one of the clearest points at which the avatar-lists openly disagree.

In the Mahabharata he refuses to take either side at Kurukshetra, having taught the mace to both Bhima and Duryodhana, and goes on pilgrimage while the war is fought. At Puri in Odisha he stands beside Jagannath (Krishna) and their sister Subhadra in the famous triad drawn out on the great chariots at the Rath Yatra. The Jains, too, count him among their shalakapurusha, the great figures of their universal history.