text: 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).
  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.
  Balarama, as Baladewa, is an important character in the 11th-century Javanese text Kakawin Bhāratayuddha, the Kakawin poem based on the Mahabharata.
  Archeology, coins, arts, and epigraphy
  Balarama was anciently a powerful local deity named Samkarshana, associated with the local cult of the Vrishni heroes in Mathura from around the 4th century BCE. The concept of the avatars of Vishnu formed during the Kushan period in the 3rd to 2nd century CE.
  Coins dated to about 185-170 BCE belonging to the Indo-Greek King Agathocles show Balarama's iconography and Greek inscriptions. Balarama-Samkarshana is typically shown standing with a gada in his right hand and holding a plough in his left. On the other side of these coins is Vāsudeva-Krishna holding the conch and chakra.