Vallabhacharya is the founder of Vallabha Sampradaya or Pushtimarg in Hinduism – believes in obtaining pushti (grace) through loving devotion to Bhagavan Sri Krishna. The birth of Vallabhacharya is a miracle. The miraculous birth of Vallabhacharya took place in Champa forest, in present day Madhya Pradesh in 1479 CE.
His birth, as per history, was prophesied by Bhagavan Vishnu himself, who emerged from the yajna kunda or sacrificial fire of Vallabhacharya’s distant ancestor, Yajnanarayana Dikshita, a Tailanga Brahmin from Andhra Pradesh. Bhagavan Vishnu informed Yajnanarayana that he would take birth in his family after he and his descendants had performed one hundred Soma yajnas.
Five generations later, Lakshmana Bhatta, settled in Kashi, performed the hundredth Soma Yajna. Shortly thereafter, Lakshmana Bhatta and his pregnant wife Illamagaru were forced to flee Kashi in the wake of rumors of invading Muslims.
In the weariness of their flight back to their ancestral home in Andhra Pradesh, Illamagaru gave birth prematurely to a son, apparently stillborn, in the Champa forest in Madhya Pradesh. The couple wrapped the child in cloth and left him in the hollow of a shami tree. The next morning, in response to a dream, Illamagaru led her husband back to the site where she had delivered the baby, and there she discovered a newborn baby cheerfully playing, encircled by flames, with a halo around his head.