Everyone and everything
Manasaputras, the mind-born sons of Brahma
The children Brahma produced from his mind rather than by birth. Lists differ by text but include Narada, Daksha…
The Alvars
Azhwars · Naalayira Divya Prabandham
Twelve Tamil poet-saints — Poigai, Bhutha, Pey, Tirumalisai, Nammalvar, Madhurakavi, Kulasekhara, Periyalvar, Andal…
The Indus 'Pashupati' seal
Mohenjo-daro seal 420
A steatite seal found by Ernest Mackay at Mohenjo-daro in 1928–29, dated about 2350–2000 BCE, showing a horned seated…
The Shakti Peethas
The shrines where parts of Sati's body fell as Shiva carried her corpse after Daksha's sacrifice; strongest in Bengal…
The twelve Jyotirlingas
Dvadasha Jyotirlinga
The twelve shrines where, after the pillar of light between Brahma and Vishnu, Shiva's radiance is said to have…
Brahmahatya
The sin of killing a brahmin, personified in the beheading story as the force that clings to Shiva or Bhairava…
Dattatreya as the three gods in one
The one widely worshipped image in which Brahma is a full third of the god: Dattatreya, son of the sage Atri and…
Harihara, the Vishnu-Shiva composite
A two-god synthesis in which Vishnu (Hari) and Shiva (Hara) share one body split vertically, an ascetic half and a…
Purusha (the cosmic person)
Purusha Sukta
The thousand-headed being of Rigveda 10.90 whose sacrifice by the gods yields the social orders, the Vedas, the moon…
Sabara
Savara · Saora
A forest-dwelling tribal community of Odisha named in the Jagannath origin tradition as the first worshippers of the…
The Shaiva schools
Pashupata · Shaiva Siddhanta · Kashmir Shaivism (Trika) · Lingayat / Veerashaiva · Nath
Five living or historical ways of framing Shiva that disagree at the root and are described, never harmonised: the…
Theyyam
Theyyattam · Kaliyattam
A ritual performance tradition of north Kerala and neighbouring Karnataka in which a costumed dancer from a hereditary…
Trimurti
Trinity · Trimurthi
The idea that Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (Rudra) are three faces of one divine reality, charged with creation…
Yakshagana
A dusk-to-dawn folk theatre of coastal Karnataka that stages episodes from the epics and Puranas as prasangas, with…