Stories 12
Tradition: Folk · clear
Aiyanar, the horseman at the village edge
The Tamil village guardian on horseback was absorbed over the medieval centuries into Shasta, the son of Shiva and Mohini, and the Sanskritising continues today.
Brahm Baba of Mithila, a false friend
Every Maithil village keeps a Brahma Sthan, a peepal or banyan to the west.
Calling Bhairav into the room
In the Kumaoni jagar, singers call a deity into a gathering through song and drum until a medium falls into trance; Bhairav's tales are among those sung.
Manasa and the merchant who would not bow
Shiva's neglected daughter, the snake goddess Manasa, kills a Shaiva merchant's sons one by one until his daughter-in-law wins them back and he yields.
Mohini and the demon who burned himself
A demon wins from Shiva the power to destroy whoever he touches on the head and turns on the giver; Vishnu, as Mohini or as a young brahmachari, tricks him into testing the boon on himself.
Mohini, the self-burning demon and the birth of Ayyappa
Vishnu as the enchantress Mohini dances a demon into touching his own head, and in Kerala tradition bears Shiva's son Ayyappa; the full record is I-4 in the interactions file.
Shiva takes up the plough
Rameswar Bhattacharya's 18th-century Bengali poem makes Shiva an illiterate, penniless villager who has to farm to feed his family.
The Puranas played till dawn
Coastal Karnataka's Yakshagana restages epic and Puranic episodes as night-long prasangas; Bhasmasura and Mohini is one of its favourites.
The boar Shiva sent to earth
A piglet raised by Parvati in Shiva's garden grows wild; instead of killing it Shiva sends it down to protect people, and it becomes the Tulu guardian Panjurli.
The cow that milked a stone
A milkman's cow leaves the herd each day and lets her milk fall on a stone in the forest.
The demon who could burn with a touch
A demon worships Shiva with terrible austerities, offering pieces of his own body.
Vishnumoorthi comes down in the Theyyam
In north Malabar the man-lion's killing of Hiranyakashipu is not read but danced, by a performer who is believed to become the god.