Stories 6
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 240
South India 81
West India 37
East India 37
North India 28
The Himalaya 17
Northeast India 8
Southeast Asia 6
Central India 5
Sri Lanka 1
cursesacrificedevotionpridebooncreationdisguisemarriagetestbirthsupremacybargaindeathfirehealingpenancerescuepilgrimagerivercraftfestivaldancegiftrivalryearthemanationfriendshipnightdesirefear
Tradition: Shaiva · clear
Temple legend · 1 telling · contested
Gautama's penance and the Godavari
The sage Gautama and his wife Ahalya live on Brahmagiri in a long drought.
Temple legend · 1 telling · contested
Ghushma's hundred and one lingas
The brahmin Sudharma and his wife Sudeha have no child.
Temple legend · 4 tellings · contested
How Vishnu and Shiva became one body
Vishnu and Shiva merge into a single form — to end a dispute among devotees, to kill Guhasura whom neither could kill alone, or at Parvati's prayer to reconcile two serpent kings. Shiva is the right half, Vishnu the left, in every telling.
Temple legend · 2 tellings · contested
Ravana loses the atmalinga
Ravana wins Shiva's own linga by fierce penance, to take home to Lanka.
Temple legend · 3 tellings · contested
The demon of the Sahyadri and the Bhima river
A demon oppresses the gods and men from the Sahyadri hills.
Temple legend · 1 telling · contested
The moon's curse eased at Somnath
Chandra marries the twenty-seven daughters of Daksha, the lunar mansions.