Editing Balarama (section)

===Texts===
Narratives of Balarama are found in ''[[Mahabharata]]'', ''[[Harivamsha]]'', ''[[Bhagavata Purana]],'' and other [[Puranas]]. He is identified with the [[vyuha]] avatar of [[Saṃkarṣaṇa|Sankarshana]], along with the deities of [[Shesha]] and [[Lakshmana]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Srimad-Bhagavatam: Bhagavata Purana|isbn=0892132507|author=A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada|author-link=A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada|editor=Bhaktivedanta Book Trust|year=1987}}<!--|access-date=29 July 2013--></ref> The legend of Balarama as the avatar of Shesha, the demigod-serpent Vishnu rests upon, reflects his role and association with Vishnu.<ref name=" JonesRyan2006p65"/> However, Balarama's mythology and his association with the ten avatars of Vishnu is relatively younger and post-Vedic, because it is not found in the Vedic texts.<ref>Padmanabh S. Jaini (1977), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/615287 Jina Ṛṣabha as an "Avatāra" of Viṣṇu], ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'', Cambridge University Press, Vol. 40, No. 2 (1977), pp. 321–337</ref>

Balarama's legend appears in many ''Parva'' (books) of the ''[[Mahabharata]]''. Book Three ([[Vana Parva]]) states about Krishna and him that Balarama is an avatar of Vishnu, while Krishna is the source of all avatars and existence. In some art works of the [[Vijayanagara Empire]], temples of Gujarat and elsewhere, for example, Baladeva is the eighth avatar of Vishnu, prior to the [[Buddha]] (Buddhism) or [[Arihant (Jainism)|Arihant]] (Jainism).<ref>{{cite book|author=Roshen Dalal|title=Hinduism: An Alphabetical Guide|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DH0vmD8ghdMC |year=2010|publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0-14-341421-6 |page=112}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Kenneth W. Morgan|title=The Religion of the Hindus|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ulz9mO9cK54C&pg=PA55| year=1987|publisher =Motilal Banarsidass |isbn= 978-81-208-0387-9|page=55}}</ref>

Balarama finds a mention in Kautilya's [[Arthashastra]] (4th to 2nd century BCE), where according to Hudson, his followers are described as "ascetic worshippers" with shaved heads or braided hair.<ref name="Hudson2008p99"/>

Balarama, as Baladewa, is an important character in the 11th-century Javanese text ''[[Kakawin Bhāratayuddha]]'', the Kakawin poem based on the ''Mahabharata''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Helen Creese|title=Women of the Kakawin World: Marriage and Sexuality in the Indic Courts of Java and Bali|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RZ1sBgAAQBAJ |year=2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-45179-2|pages=93, 104–105, 110}}</ref>