Pradyumna

Pradyumna (Sanskrit: प्रद्युम्न) was the son of Krishna and Rukmini. Pradyumna is considered as one of the four vyuha avatars of Vishnu. According to some accounts, Pradyumna was an incarnation of Kamadeva or Manmatha, the god of love. The Harivamsa describes intricate relationships between the Vrishni heroes - Krishna,Balarama, Pradyumna and Aniruddha, that would later form a Vaishnava concept of primary quadrupled expansion, or avatar.

In the Satya Yuga, Kamadeva was burnt by Shiva when he became a barrier to Shiva's meditation. Shiva blessed Kamadeva's distraught wife, Rati and promised her that in his next birth Kamadeva will be a part of Krishna and Rati will be the daughter of Rukmi and that she will marry him. Within a span of 10 days of Pradyumna's birth, he was abducted by the demon Shambara. He was then cast into the sea and swallowed by a fish, but that fish was caught and carried to the house of Shambara. The fish was opened and the child was found inside. He was given to a woman in Shambara's house to raise. Narada informed her about the true identity of the child. When Pradyumna grew up, he battled the demon Shambara and killed him using the Vaishnavastra. Soon after Pradyumna became a constant companion of his father Krishna and was well liked by the people of Dwaraka. Pradyumna was a mighty Maharathi warrior. He possessed the extremely rare Vaishnavastra which is the most powerful weapon in the universe. Also he was one of the very few people to knew the secret of the Chakra Vyuha. According to Mahabharata, Pradyumna trained Abhimanyu and Upapandavas in warfare. But Pradyumna did not participate in the Kurukshetra War as he went on a pilgrimage with his uncle Balarama and other Yadavas.