Stories 14
Annamacharya's copper-plate songs
The Telugu poet Annamacharya sang more than thirty thousand songs to Venkateswara of Tirumala; engraved on copper, they lay forgotten in a temple vault until 1922.
Ayyappa and his companion Vavar
Kerala's Ayyappa, born of Shiva and Mohini, grows up in Pandalam, defeats the demoness Mahishi and keeps a Muslim companion whose mosque still faces his temple at Erumely.
How Mahakal came to Ujjain
King Chandrasena of Ujjain is a devotee of Shiva and a friend of Shiva's attendant Manibhadra.
Kanakadasa's window at Udupi
Turned away from the Udupi temple, the shepherd-saint Kanakadasa sang outside until the image turned to face him through a gap in the wall.
Kanakadasa's window at Udupi
Madhva finds the Krishna image in a lump of clay; the low-caste singer Kanakadasa, barred from the temple, sees the god turn west through a crack that became the Kanakana Kindi.
Nakkeerar disputes Shiva's poem
The Pandya king wonders whether the scent of a woman's hair is natural or from perfume, and offers gold for the verse that settles it.
Saraswati's forty-eight letters found the Madurai Sangam
Saraswati lingers on the way to bathe in the Ganga and arrives late.
Shiva carries earth for an old woman's puttu
The Vaigai floods and the Pandya king orders every household to repair a stretch of the bund.
Shiva's sixty-four games in Madurai
The Tamil Thiruvilaiyadal Puranam turns Shiva into Madurai's own god, who walks into the city in disguise across the reigns of fifty-two Pandya kings.
The Brahmaputra, son of Brahma
Brahma sees Amogha, wife of the sage Shantanu, and desires her.
The Rama found in an anthill
A tribal woman finds Rama's images in an anthill on the Godavari; a tax official builds the temple with state money and is jailed for it.
The god who waited on a brick
Krishna came to Pundalik's door, was told to wait on a brick while the son served his parents, and stayed; the Varkari saints sang to him as Vitthal.
The sixty-four games of Shiva at Madurai
Indra, freed of a sin, worships a linga in a kadamba forest.
The tribal woman who found Rama at Bhadrachalam
Pokala Dhammakka finds the images of Rama, Sita and Lakshmana in an anthill; the revenue officer Ramadasu builds the temple in 1674 and is jailed for using the state's money.