Aniruddha (Sanskrit: अनिरुद्ध), meaning "uncontrolled" or "without obstacles", was the son of Pradyumna and the grandson of Krishna. He is said to have been very much like his grandfather, to the extent that he may be a jana avatar. The four important Vishnu extensions are Vasudeva, Sankarsana, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha. These four are considered to be vishnu-tattva or Vishnu's plenary expansions. Aniruddha is present in every soul as Supersoul.
A Daitya princess named Usha, daughter of Bana, fell in love with Aniruddha and had him brought by magic influence to her apartments in her father's city of Sonitapura. In her previous life, Usa was the apsara, Tilottama. She was cursed by Durvasa muni to be born as a Daitya princess, as she had been caught making love to Sushi, the son of the great devotee Ravi without any restraint and any regard for Durvasa muni, who was meditating there at the time, unseen by them, as he was behind a hill of ants. Bana sent guards to seize him, but the valiant youth, taking an iron club, slew his assailants. Bana then brought his magic powers to bear and secured him.
On discovering that Aniruddha had been carried away, Krishna, Balarama, and Pradyumna went to rescue him. Bansura was a great devotee of the god Shiva and had 1000 arms, as a result of which no one had ever been willing to fight him. Blinded by his pride, he asked Shiva to give him a chance to fight with someone as strong as himself. Shiva therefore cursed him to defeat in war by Krishna, an Avatar of Vishnu.
Thus a great battle was fought. When Krishna was about to kill Banasura, Shiva intervened and told both of them to stop fighting. Both Shiva Mahapuran and Vishnupuran tell tales of how Krishna's and Shiva's armies fought one another inconclusively. Both Krishna and Shiva remained invincible. The war ended peacefully with Shiva and Krishna showing Harihara(Shiva-Vishnu) unity by proclaiming both are one and united with each other and that Shiva cannot win without Krishna and Krishna cannot win without Shiva. Both gave due respect to each other and offered prayers to each other and said that the lesson to be learnt is "Shiva is Krishna and Krishna is Shiva".
Two crucial references are present in the Nalayira Divya Prabandham about the episode of how Krishna fights with Banasura. One is in the Tiruvaimozhi of Nammazhwar and another in the iRamanusa Nootrandhadhi. Specifically the pasuram no 8 belonging to the 7th Centum 4th Decad (starts with aazhi-yezha) - "ner sarindhan .... konda-vanre" and the pasuram no 22 of iRamanusa Nootrandhadhi "karthigaiyaanum ... "
Bana was defeated, but his life was spared at the intercession of Shiva, and Aniruddha was carried home to Dwaraka with Usha as his wife. He is also called Jhashanka and Ushapati. He had a son named Vajra, whose lineage is traced to the royal family of Jaisalmer.
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