Everyone and everything
Kannappa
Thinnan · Kannappa Nayanar · Bhakta Kannappa
The hunter Thinnan who worshipped the Kalahasti linga with meat and water carried in his mouth and, when the linga's…
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
Gauranga · Nimai
Bengali saint (1486–1534) who taught the Hare Krishna mantra and congregational chanting, spent his last two decades at…
Kanakadasa
Sixteenth-century Haridasa poet-saint of a herding caste, barred from the Udupi temple, for whom the Krishna image is…
Basavanna
Basava · Basaveshwara
Twelfth-century minister of the Kalachuri king Bijjala II and the guiding figure of the Lingayats: founder of the…
Dnyaneshwar
Jnaneshwar · Jnanadeva
The 13th-century Marathi saint whose verse commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, the Dnyaneshwari, is the scripture of the…
Gautama Buddha
Shakyamuni · the Buddha
The awakened teacher of Buddhism, declared here as a stub for the Pali records in which Brahmas appear as his pupils…
Ghushma
Kusuma
The devotee who made a hundred and one clay lingas every day, kept worshipping when her jealous sister killed her son…
Purandara Dasa
Purandaradasa · Srinivasa Nayaka
A Haridasa composer of the late 15th and 16th centuries, initiated by Vyasatirtha at Hampi, who wrote Kannada keertanas…
Samba
Son of Krishna and Jambavati, granted by Shiva after Krishna's six-month penance and named after the Ardhanarishvara…
Sankardev
Srimanta Sankardev
Assamese saint-poet (1449–1568 by tradition; some historians place the birth 1479–84) who founded Ekasarana Dharma —…
Tukaram
Sant Tukaram
A 17th-century Marathi poet-saint of Dehu whose abhangas to Vitthal and whose community kirtans shaped the Varkari…
Vyasatirtha
Vyasaraja
The Madhva scholar-saint of Vijayanagara who initiated Purandara Dasa and Kanakadasa and gave the Haridasa movement its…
Akka Mahadevi
A 12th-century Kannada woman poet-saint of the Sharana movement whose vachanas address Shiva as Chennamallikarjuna, her…
Allama Prabhu
A 12th-century Kannada mystic and vachana poet, presiding figure of the Anubhava Mantapa at Kalyana, whose signature is…
Amogha
Wife of the sage Shantanu in the Kalika Purana; Brahma desires her, is refused, and the son that results, Lauhitya…
Andal
Kodhai · Goda Devi
The only woman among the twelve Alvars, whose Thiruppavai is sung every Margazhi; tradition says she merged into…
Annamacharya
Tallapaka Annamacharya · Annamayya
A 15th-century Telugu poet-composer, the earliest known writer of sankirtanas in the south, who addressed more than…
Bhadrachala Ramadasu
Kancharla Gopanna · Ramadasu
A 17th-century revenue official under the Golconda sultanate who built the Bhadrachalam Rama temple with state money…
Bhakta Ramadasu
Kancharla Gopanna
The Golconda revenue officer who built the Bhadrachalam temple in 1674 with state money and was jailed for it…
Chand Sadagar
The proud Shaiva merchant of the Manasamangal who refuses to worship Manasa, loses six sons and his ships to her, and…
Dharumi
The poor poet to whom Shiva gave a verse answering the Pandya king's question, so that he might win the prize. Stub…
Kamarupa
The Shiva devotee imprisoned by Bhimasura in the popular Bhimashankar legend, whose worship brought Shiva to the…
Lakshmana
Rama's younger brother; declared here as a stub because the Jain Ramayana makes him, not Rama, the killer of Ravana, as…
Manikkavacakar
The Pandya minister sent to buy horses who met Shiva as an ascetic at Tirupperunturai and spent the king's money on a…
Nakkeerar
Nakkirar
The Sangam-academy poet who found fault with a poem that Shiva had given the poor poet Dharumi, held his ground even…
Narasimha Saraswati
The 15th-century ascetic whose life is told in the Guru Charitra and who is honoured in Maharashtra as an incarnation…
Pokala Dhammakka
Dammakka
A tribal woman of the Bhadragiri hills who, in the local telling, was led by a dream to find self-formed images of…
Pokala Dhammakka
The tribal woman of the Bhadrachalam hills who found the images of Rama, Sita and Lakshmana in an anthill and began…
Pundalik
The devoted son who, busy serving his parents when Krishna called, threw a brick out for the god to stand on; the…
Shrikhar
The boy of Ujjain who, with the priest Vridhi, prayed to Shiva when rival kings and the demon Dushana attacked the…
Thuluka Nachiyar
Bibi Nachiyar
The Delhi Sultan's daughter who, in Srirangam tradition, loved the processional icon carried off in the 1311 raid and…
Uddhava
Krishna's friend and disciple who retrieved the Guruvayur image as Dwarka sank and handed it to Brihaspati and Vayu.
Vakula Devi
The foster mother of Srinivasa on the Venkata hill, held to be Yashoda reborn so that she could see Krishna married.
Vanthi
Chemmanachelvi
The old puttu-seller of Madurai for whom Shiva worked as a labourer on the Vaigai bund, paid in puttu; her name is…
Vavar
Vavar Swami
Ayyappa's companion in Sabarimala tradition, honoured with a mosque at Erumeli that pilgrims visit on the way. Sources…
Viswavasu
Vishvavasu
The Sabara chief of the Jagannath origin story who worshipped Nilamadhava hidden in the forest and whose daughter…
Behula
Chand Sadagar's daughter-in-law, who floats her dead husband Lakhindar down the river on a raft to the gods' court and…
Buta Malik
The Muslim shepherd who, in the Shrine Board's telling, was given a bag of coal by a saint, found it full of gold, and…
Kalidasa
The Sanskrit poet (c. fourth to fifth century CE) whose Kumarasambhava already treats Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva as one…
Mukunda Ghosh
The milkman whose cow poured milk on a stone every day, leading to the discovery of the Tarakeswar linga. Stub entity.
Nanga Baiga
The first Baiga man of the tradition Verrier Elwin recorded, born with his wife Nanga Baigin from drops of a sage's…
Nanga Baigin
Nanga Baiga's wife, who in the Baiga telling drove the nails into the four corners of the world and made the slippery…
Neminatha
Arishtanemi
The twenty-second Tirthankara of Jainism, cousin of Krishna in Jinasena's Harivamsa Purana.
Pilchu Budhi
The first woman of Santal tradition, partner of Pilchu Haram, from whom the Santal clans descend.
Pilchu Haram
The first man of Santal tradition, hatched with Pilchu Budhi from the eggs of the birds Thakur Jiu made.
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
The 19th-century priest of the Dakshineswar Kali temple whose practice presented Kali as the universal Mother and…
Sudeha
Ghushma's elder sister and co-wife of the brahmin Sudharma, who out of jealousy killed Ghushma's son and was forgiven…
Vidyapati
Indradyumna's brahmin envoy who married the Sabara chief's daughter Lalita and scattered mustard seeds to mark the…