alsIbis image is also found located before Sri Venkatesvara in his sanctum. The Puranas explain the presence of Krishna here. Sri Venkatesvara is regarded as an incarnation of Krishna. Ibis gOd is represented to have described himself to Padmavati, when the two met in a garden before their marriage, as the eighth issue of Devaki and Vasudeva, as the brother of Balarama and Subhadra and as a friend of the Pandavas. It is o stated that after being shot at by a hunter while resting under a tree and casting off his mortal coils, Krishna emerged in the Suryamandala in the form in which the image of Sri Venkatesvara is sculptured.
the earliest inscriptional reference to this god is found in a record of 1495 A.D. which provides for offerings to be made to him on the Sri Jayanti day at the time of his birth (11-132). Other records provide for offerings to be made on the fifth day of the nine Brahmotsavams celebrated at Tirumala (T. T. 14,54,58).
