Famous in the madhwa line, Sri Raghavendra is linked with many miracles. His samaadhi is at mantrAlayam.
Whose avatAr was he ?
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asked Nov 22 '17 at 21:31
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just wondering why do you use capital 'A' in between words? – Just_Do_It Nov 22 '17 at 21:51
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Its the way of transcribing for devanagari script. Exanple vaanee can be written as vAnI maataa can be written as mAtA etc. – Rakesh Joshi Nov 22 '17 at 22:42
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I'd like to start by pointing out that it's not his samadhi but the vrindavana which is present in Mantralaya.
Sri Raghavendra Swami is considered to be the 4th incarnation of Sankukarna, who was an attendant of Lord Brahma. He was designated with the task of providing Lord Brahma with the articles needed for daily worship.
From the book, Sri Raghavendra Teertha - Life history and works.
It was a divine plan. One day Sankukarna was late in bringing the articles of worship to Brahmadeva, who was not happy with the delay caused. A curse outwardly (a boon really) befell SankuKarna to be born as a human being in the mundane world.
The four incarnations of Sankukarna were Prahlada, Bahlika, Sri Vyasaraaja Theertha and Sri Raghavendra Swamiji.
A nice read on the life of Sri Raghavendra Swami is Sri Raghavandra Mahatmyam - Saint of Mantralaya, which also mentions this story at the very start:
Shankukarnakya devasthu brahma shapasya boothale
Prahalada ithi vikhyatho bhoobaraksha pane rathara
[...] raghavendraksha yathi rupena sarvadha
kaliyuge ramaseva kurvan mantralaye bhaveth
One of the books which mention the story in detail is Kaliyugada Kalpataru, by Raja Gururajacharya. There is an entire chapter dedicated to this story called "Shankukarna". If you know the Kannada language, you can read it online.
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I can understand the other three, but why would he incarnate as Bahlika? Bahlika was the brother of Shantanu and he fought in the Kaurava side in the Mahabharata war, but that's about all that's notable about him. I'm not sure what connection he has to Bhakti. – Keshav Srinivasan♦ Feb 2 '18 at 14:40
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@RakeshJoshi I did not get your comment. Do you want to ask about the incarnations of prahlada? If that's the case, then the 3 others whom I've mentioned can be considered as his incarnations. – Bhargav Rao Feb 2 '18 at 19:49
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@KeshavSrinivasan, I'm not that aware of the reasoning behind that particular incarnation. The biography doesn't speak much about it. – Bhargav Rao Feb 2 '18 at 19:50
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@KeshavSrinivasan shantanu was not ordinary person he was a rajarishi with great powers his brother too would be a special man – Rakesh Joshi Feb 3 '18 at 23:55
