Stories 3
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 104
South India 67
West India 30
East India 22
North India 15
The Himalaya 12
Northeast India 5
Southeast Asia 4
Central India 4
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Tradition: Vaishnava · clear
Folk tale · 2 tellings · contested
Mohini and the demon who burned himself
A demon wins from Shiva the power to destroy whoever he touches on the head and turns on the giver; Vishnu, as Mohini or as a young brahmachari, tricks him into testing the boon on himself.
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.
Temple legend · 2 tellings · contested
Two origins of Padmanabhaswamy
Either Parashurama consecrated the reclining image, or Vishnu appeared to the sage Vilwamangalam as a mischievous boy and became a falling tree that took the shape of Ananta Padmanabha.