Stories 4
All kinds
Origin
Legend
Local story
Folk tale
From the epics
Festival story
Temple legend
In stone and bronze
How a tradition frames it
Everywhere
Pan-India 94
South India 66
West India 30
East India 22
North India 15
The Himalaya 12
Northeast India 5
Southeast Asia 4
Central India 4
✕ creation
devotionboondisguisesupremacycursemarriagepenancepridetestdancepilgrimagesacrificebirthemanationfirebeheadingdemon slayingdesireiconographyausteritychurningcombined formcosmogonyhomecominglingapoisonrebirthriveratonement
Tradition: Tribal · clear
Origin · 2 tellings
Nanga Baigin nails down the earth
The new earth wobbles like mud until Bhagavan sends for Nanga Baiga, whose wife drives nails into its four corners.
Origin · 1 telling
Singbonga and the clay-divers
The Munda sun god sends a tortoise, a crab and an earthworm to fetch clay from under the waters; the smallest succeeds and the earth is made.
Origin · 1 telling
Thakur Jiu and the two birds
The Santal creator makes two water-birds over the primal sea; from their eggs come the first man and woman, and no Puranic god appears.
Origin · 2 tellings · contested
The fish that warned the Bhils
A fish warns a brother and sister of a flood; afterwards Bhagwan, or in one telling Rama, sends them to repeople the world.