Nalakuvara, also known as Nalakubara (Sanskrit: नलकूबर, romanized: Nalakūbara), appears in Hindu and Buddhist mythology as the brother of Manigriva (also known as Manibhadra), the son of the yaksha king Kubera (also known as Vaishravana), and husband of Rambha and Ratnamala.

Various Sanskrit and Prakrit texts offer the name "Nalakuvara", "Nalakūvala", "Mayuraja", "Narakuvera", and "Naṭakuvera" to describe the son of Kubera.

The god also appears in Chinese texts as "Nazha", and later "Nezha", a shortened transliteration of the word "Nalakuvara".

[5][6] Many years later, when Krishna was in his infancy, his foster-mother Yashoda had tied him to a mortar in order to prevent him from eating dirt.

[7] In the Kākāti Jātaka story, Nalakuvara (here Naṭakuvera), appears as the court musician of the king of Benares.

He appears in the tantric text "Great Peacock-Queen Spell," which portrays him as a heroic yakṣa general and invokes Nalakūvara's name as a way to cure snakebites.

According to Meir Shahar, the etymology of the word “Nezha” showed that the name is a shortened (and slightly corrupted) transcription of the Sanskrit name "Nalakūbara.