Kumara

The four Kumaras are the elder brothers of Shiva . They are described as great Vaisnavas - devotees of Vishnu . In the Bhagavata Purana , four Kumaras are mentioned in the list of 12 mahajans, or great devotees of Vishnu. Although they are eternally liberated souls , they were attracted to the devotional service of Vishnu. According to the Bhagavata Purana, at the beginning of their lives, the Kumaras were impersonalists , but subsequently, by the grace of their father and spiritual master Brahma, they attained the eternal spiritual form of Vishnu and embarked on the path of bhakti .

Four Kumaras were born from Brahma at the very beginning of creation, when his main task was to inhabit this universe with living beings. Brahma ordered the four Kumaras to become Prajapati , that is, to produce offspring and thus populate the universe. But the four Kumaras had a very deep desire to devote their entire existence to the service of Vishnu, and did not want something to distract them from this. They decided to remain brahmachari . Because they did not want to help him, Brahma was very angry with them. Out of the wrath of Brahma appeared Shiva, who came out of his eyebrow. But then, when Brahma saw how pure the heart of the four Kumaras was, his anger vanished. Knowing that the attraction of men and women becomes very strong when a person reaches a certain age, the four Kumaras decided not to grow up, but to remain five or six-year-old children until the period of the destruction of the universe. It is described that they travel throughout the universe in the form of small, naked children, despite the fact that their age reaches several billion years.

The Bhagavata Purana describes how Jaya and Vijaya , the two servants of the Supreme Lord Vishnu in Vaikuntha , insulted the four Kumaras without letting them go to Vaikuntha to meet with Vishnu. In punishment for this insult, Jaya and Vijaya were forced to be born three times on earth as demons and fight with Vishnu in one of his incarnations . In Satya Yuga, they were born demons named Hiranyakasipu and Hiranyaksha ; in the Treta-yuga , by Ravana and Kumbhakarnaya, and at the end of Dvapara-yuga , by Shishupaloy and Dantavakra .

One of the four authoritative philosophical schools ( sampradayas ) in Vaishnavism, the nimbarka-sampradaya , the founder of which was the Vaishnava saint and philosopher Nimbarka , is also known by the name "kumara-sampradaya". Nimbarka received instructions from the four Kumaras on how to worship the divine couple Radha-Krishna and the special mantra, the Radha-Krishna mantra. The four Kumaras played a key role in the emergence of the sampraday nimbark. The Bhagavata Purana describes the avatar of Hamsa , Krishna , or Vishnu, who appeared in the form of a swan in order to instruct the four Kumaras and their father Brahma . He also revealed to the four brothers a special Gopala mantra specially designed for worshiping Krsna as the cowherd of Gopala . To this day, the Gopala mantra is transmitted along the disciplic succession of parampara in the nimbarka-sampradaya. Brahma gave a detailed explanation of the meaning of the Gopal Mantra, which is contained in the Gopalatapani Upanishad , which is part of the Yajurveda . This marked the beginning of the Sampradaya Nimbark, whose followers believe that the main goal of Krishna's avatar as a Hamsa swan was to found their philosophical school and transfer the Gopal Mantra to the four Kumaras.

• Narada
• Vaikuntha

• Bhagavata Purana Canto 4, Chapter 22: Meeting of Maharaja Prthu with the Four Kumaras
• The Four Kumaras