Everyone and everything
Bhrigu
Bhrigu Maharishi
One of the great seers and a son of Brahma. In the Bhagavata he is chosen by the sages on the Sarasvati to find out…
Anasuya
Anusuya
Wife of the sage Atri, held up as the model of a chaste and austere wife. When the three gods come to her hermitage as…
Narada
A mind-born son of Brahma, the wandering divine sage and musician who carries news between the worlds. His best-known…
Atri
One of the seven great seers, husband of Anasuya and father of Dattatreya. In the Bhagavata he prays to the three gods…
Durvasa
The quick-tempered sage whose curse, after Indra's elephant trampled his garland, drained the gods of strength and…
Markandeya
The sage born to Mrikandu as a virtuous son fated to die at sixteen, who embraced the linga when Yama came; Shiva as…
Adi Shankara
The 8th–9th-century Advaita teacher whom tradition credits with recovering the Badrinarayan image from the Tapt Kund…
Mrikandu
Markandeya's father, who chose from Shiva a short-lived virtuous son over a long-lived dull one. Stub entity.
Vasishtha
Vashishtha
A mind-born son of Brahma and one of the great seers; in the Shiva Purana's Sandhya story the reborn Arundhati becomes…
Agastya
The southern sage; in the Gajendra story his curse turns the proud Pandya king Indradyumna into an elephant.
Bhringi
The sage who vowed to circle and honour Shiva alone, ignoring Parvati; her austerities won her union with Shiva's body…
Gautama
The sage whose long penance on Brahmagiri during a drought brought Shiva to release the Ganga there as the Godavari…
Kapila
The sage whose glance burned Sagara's sixty thousand sons to ash when they accused him of stealing the sacrificial…
Madhvacharya
Thirteenth-century founder of Dvaita Vedanta who established the Udupi Krishna shrine and its eight mathas after…
Matsyendranath
Macchindranath · Luipa (Tibet)
The ninth- to tenth-century founder-figure of the Naths, said to have overheard Shiva teaching Parvati while hidden as…
Nara and Narayana
The twin sages of the Vishnu Purana who chose the Badrinath site for their austerities; Narayana is read as Vishnu…
Shukra
Shukracharya
Preceptor of the asuras who warned Bali that the dwarf was Vishnu and that the gift would cost him everything.
The Kumaras
Sanaka · Sanandana · Sanatana · Sanat Kumara
Brahma's four mind-born sons who look like children forever; turned away at Vaikuntha's gate, they cursed Jaya and…
The four Kumaras
Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatana, Sanatkumara
Brahma's mind-born sons who refuse to procreate; in the Bhagavata their refusal provokes the anger from which Rudra is…
Upamanyu
The Shaiva sage in whose Himalayan hermitage Krishna performed six months of austerities for a son; in the…
Vallabhacharya
Founder of the Pushtimarg who, by tradition in 1493, recognised the Shrinathji image at Govardhan; his son…
Vilwamangalam Swamiyar
Divakara Muni
The Kerala ascetic to whom Vishnu appeared as a boy and then as a falling tree that became the reclining Ananta…
Jahnu
The sage who drank the descending Ganga when she flooded his hermitage and released her from his ear, giving her the…
Medhatithi
The sage whose sacrificial fire Sandhya enters after her penance; she rises from it as Arundhati in the Shiva Purana…
Patanjali
The sage whose living tomb (jeeva samadhi) lies at the Brahmapureeswarar temple beside the Brahma shrine.
Shantanu (sage of the Kalika Purana)
The sage husband of Amogha in the Brahmaputra origin story, not the Kuru king of the Mahabharata; he brings the child…
Vyaghrapada
The tiger-footed sage who, with Patanjali, watched the Ananda Tandava in the Tillai forest. Stub entity.