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 95
South India 67
West India 30
East India 22
North India 15
The Himalaya 12
Northeast India 5
Southeast Asia 4
Central India 4
✕ devotion
booncreationdisguisesupremacycursemarriagepenancepridetestdancepilgrimagesacrificebirthemanationfirebeheadingdemon slayingdesireiconographyausteritychurningcombined formcosmogonyhomecominglingapoisonrebirthriveratonement
Tradition: Shaiva · clear
Temple legend · 1 telling · contested
Brahma drives Lingaraj's chariot
Brahma comes to Bhubaneswar for the coronation of Lingaraj.
Temple legend · 1 telling · contested
Ghushma's hundred and one lingas
The brahmin Sudharma and his wife Sudeha have no child.
Temple legend · 3 tellings · contested
Rama installs the linga at Rameswaram
Rama worships Shiva as a linga on the island of Rameswaram — before the bridge in the Ramayana, or after Ravana's death to expiate the killing of a brahmin in temple tradition, where Sita's sand linga and Hanuman's linga from Kailasa stand side by side.
Temple legend · 4 tellings · contested
The birth of Ayyappa
Brahma's boon to Mahishi — that only a child of Vishnu and Shiva can kill her — forces Vishnu to take the Mohini form; Shiva's desire for Mohini yields a son, found and raised by the king of Pandalam, who kills Mahishi and takes his seat at Sabarimala.