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 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
✕ penance
devotionbooncreationdisguisesupremacycursemarriagepridetestdancepilgrimagesacrificebirthemanationfirebeheadingdemon slayingdesireiconographyausteritychurningcombined formcosmogonyhomecominglingapoisonrebirthriveratonement
Legend · 1 telling · contested
Brahma, Sandhya and the curse on Kama
Brahma's mind-born daughter Sandhya is so beautiful that Kama tests his new arrows on the gathering.
Origin · 5 tellings · contested
How Shiva became half woman
Brahma makes a world of male beings that cannot multiply.
From the epics · 1 telling
Krishna's penance for a son
Jambavati asks Krishna for a son like Pradyumna; Krishna spends six months in austerities under the sage Upamanyu, and Shiva appears as Ardhanarishvara to grant the boy Samba, named after that form.
Legend · 2 tellings · contested
Ravana's boon at Gokarna
Ravana and his brothers Kumbhakarna and Vibhishana perform austerities at Gokarna for ten thousand years.
Festival story · 2 tellings
Shiva the begging farmer of the Gajan
At Bengal's Chaitra Gajan devotees become Shiva and his ganas, act out his marriage and beg from house to house; the god is a poor householder scolded by his wife.
Legend · 2 tellings · contested
The boon that had a loophole: Hiranyakashipu
Hiranyakashipu performs long austerities to win power over the gods.