Everyone and everything
Ayyappa
Ayyappan · Manikandan · Manikantha · Dharma Shasta · Hariharaputra · Hariharasuta
The god of Sabarimala, held in Kerala to be the son of Shiva and Vishnu-as-Mohini, born to kill the buffalo-demoness…
Aiyanar
Ayyanar · Shasta · Hariharaputra · Ayyanayake
Guardian god of the Tamil village boundary, shown on horseback with a sword, with a shrine outside almost every…
Bhasmasura
Bhasmasur · the ash demon
A demon who wins from Shiva the power to burn to ash whoever he touches on the head, and turns it on the giver. Vishnu…
Gangaur
Sixteen days from the day after Holi to Chaitra Shukla Tritiya in which women worship clay images of Isar and Gauri…
Mahabali
Maveli · Bali (Kerala telling)
The asura king remembered in Kerala as a just and equal-handed ruler whose reign was a golden age, pushed down to the…
Mahishi
The buffalo-demoness of the Sabarimala tradition, born of a curse on the celestials Datta and Leela, who won from…
Manasa
Manasa Devi · Bishahari
The snake goddess of Bengal, called in the mangalkavya a neglected daughter of Shiva, who wins worship by force from…
Onam
Kerala's ten-day harvest festival from Atham to Thiruvonam in Chingam, remembering King Mahabali's yearly visit home…
Rajasekhara of Pandalam
King Rajashekhara Pandian
The childless king who found the infant Ayyappa by the Pamba, named him Manikandan for the bell at his neck, and after…
Bali Padyami
Balipratipada
The third day of Diwali in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana and Andhra, marking King Bali's yearly return…
Brahm Baba
Baraham Baba · Brahma Sthan
A village-protector deity of Mithila who lives in a peepal or banyan west of the village and is honoured with earthen…
Holi
The spring festival of colours whose eve bonfire re-enacts the burning of Holika while Prahlada survives.
Kanwar Yatra
Shravani Mela · Bol Bam
The Shravan pilgrimage in which devotees carry Ganga water on shoulder-poles on foot to Shiva shrines (Pura Mahadev…
Manasamangal Kavya
Manasa Mangal
The oldest of the Bengali mangalkavya poems, composed in several recensions from the 13th century on, telling how…
Nanda Devi
Nanda · Gaura
The mountain goddess of Garhwal and Kumaon, honoured as the Himalaya's daughter and as a young bride leaving her…
Pandalam
Seat of the royal house that, in the Sabarimala tradition, found the infant Ayyappa by the Pamba and raised him as…
Sabarimala
Sabarimalai · Sabari hill
Hill shrine of Ayyappa as Dharma Shasta in the Western Ghats of Kerala. Tradition says the king of Pandalam built the…
Shiber Gajan
Gajan · Charak
A pre-harvest festival of Chaitra in western Bengal, kept mainly by agricultural communities with Brahmins excluded…
Shivayan
Shibayan · Shivayana
Rameswar Bhattacharya's mid-18th-century Bengali poem on Shiva as a poor rural householder, with the stock episode of…
Shravan Mondays
Shravana Somvar · Solah Somvar
The month of Shravan is given to Shiva across north and east India: Monday fasts, water and bilva on the linga, Naga…
Teej
Hariyali Teej · Kajari Teej · Hartalika Teej
Parvati's monsoon festivals for women: Hariyali Teej in Shravan, Kajari and Hartalika Teej in Bhadrapada. They…
Vavar
Vavar Swami
Ayyappa's companion in Sabarimala tradition, honoured with a mosque at Erumeli that pilgrims visit on the way. Sources…
Vishnumoorthi Theyyam
Vishnumoorthy · Vishnumurti Theyyam
The most popular Vaishnava Theyyam of north Malabar: a possession-performance in which Vishnu's man-lion form and the…
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…
Holika
Hiranyakashipu's sister, immune to fire, who sat in a pyre with Prahlada on her lap and burned while he lived; the Holi…
Karuppasamy
Karuppu · Karuppanna Swamy
A dark-skinned Tamil village guardian who is worshipped beside Aiyanar and, in the Sanskritised telling, folded in as…
Madurai Veeran
Veeran
A deified Tamil folk hero of the Madurai region, worshipped as a guardian and counted among Aiyanar's attendants in the…
Mukunda Ghosh
The milkman whose cow poured milk on a stone every day, leading to the discovery of the Tarakeswar linga. Stub entity.
Panjurli
Panjurli Daiva
A boar-spirit guardian of the Tulu-speaking coast, worshipped in Bhuta Kola; the paddanas tell how a piglet raised by…
Rao Bharamalla
The zamindar of Rajput stock who built the Tarakeswar temple after Shiva appeared in his dream. Stub entity.
Theyyam
Theyyattam · Kaliyattam
A ritual performance tradition of north Kerala and neighbouring Karnataka in which a costumed dancer from a hereditary…
Yakshagana
A dusk-to-dawn folk theatre of coastal Karnataka that stages episodes from the epics and Puranas as prasangas, with…