Stories 27
Tradition: Vaishnava · clear
Annamacharya's copper-plate songs
The Telugu poet Annamacharya sang more than thirty thousand songs to Venkateswara of Tirumala; engraved on copper, they lay forgotten in a temple vault until 1922.
Bhrigu tests the three gods
Sages on the Saraswati bank ask Bhrigu to find which god is greatest.
Bhrigu tests the three gods
Sages send Bhrigu to find out which god is greatest. Brahma swallows his anger, Shiva raises his trident until his consort calms him, and Vishnu apologises after being kicked; the sages choose Vishnu. Temple and popular tellings add Lakshmi's departure, the Tirumala descent and curses on Brahma and Shiva.
Bhrigu's kick and the coming of Srinivasa
The sage Bhrigu tests the three gods and kicks the reclining Vishnu; in the Bhagavata Vishnu's humility settles the matter, while the Tirumala tradition adds Lakshmi's departure to Kolhapur and Vishnu's descent as Srinivasa, who marries Padmavati on borrowed money.
Brahmotsavam, the festival of Brahma
Brahma is believed to have worshipped Venkateswara at Tirumala and to have conducted the first festival for him.
Four Vishnu stories behind Diwali
Rama's return in the north, Narakasura's death in the south and west, Lakshmi's wedding night in Puranic lore, and Bali's return in the Deccan and Gujarat.
How Ranganatha came to face south at Srirangam
The Ranga Vimana rose from the churning, passed from Brahma to the kings of Ayodhya and from Rama to Vibhishana, and would not leave the Kaveri island.
Kamban's Rama stands above the three
In the Tamil Ramavataram Rama is divine from the start, yet the poem sets him above Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva rather than inside the triad as an avatar.
Kanakadasa's window at Udupi
Turned away from the Udupi temple, the shepherd-saint Kanakadasa sang outside until the image turned to face him through a gap in the wall.
Kanakadasa's window at Udupi
Madhva finds the Krishna image in a lump of clay; the low-caste singer Kanakadasa, barred from the temple, sees the god turn west through a crack that became the Kanakana Kindi.
Kumbakonam: Brahma loses the Vedas and wins them back
Brahma boasts that he alone can create.
Mahabali comes home for Onam
Kerala remembers Bali as the just king pushed under the earth by Vishnu's dwarf, who returns each year at harvest to see his people.
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.
Prahlada and the man-lion
The asura boy Prahlada survives his father's every attempt to kill him; Vishnu bursts from a pillar as Narasimha and kills Hiranyakashipu in a way that slips past every clause of his boon.
The Rama found in an anthill
A tribal woman finds Rama's images in an anthill on the Godavari; a tax official builds the temple with state money and is jailed for it.
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.
The burning of the three cities
The gods build Shiva a cosmic chariot with Brahma as charioteer and Vishnu as the arrow to destroy the three cities of Taraka's sons; the Shaiva prelude has Vishnu send a heretical teacher to strip the cities of merit, while the Bhagavata has Vishnu as a cow and Brahma as a calf drink the demons' reviving well dry.
The day the gate of Vaikuntha opens
On the bright eleventh of Dhanu the gate of Vaikuntha is believed to open; Srirangam's Paramapada Vasal and Tirumala's Vaikunta Dvaram are passed through, and the Padma Purana tells of the demon Mura and the power named Ekadashi.
The demon who could burn with a touch
A demon worships Shiva with terrible austerities, offering pieces of his own body.
The gatekeepers who chose three hostile births
Vaikuntha's doorkeepers bar the Kumaras, are cursed to be born away from Vishnu, and choose three lives as his enemies over seven as his devotees.
The image that came from Vaikuntha to Guruvayur
An image made by Vishnu himself passes from Brahma to King Sutapas to Uddhava, who has Brihaspati and Vayu install it in Kerala after Dwarka sinks.
The release of the elephant king
An elephant seized by a crocodile lifts a lotus and calls on Vishnu, who arrives on Garuda and frees both animal and captor with the discus.
The tribal woman who found Rama at Bhadrachalam
Pokala Dhammakka finds the images of Rama, Sita and Lakshmana in an anthill; the revenue officer Ramadasu builds the temple in 1674 and is jailed for using the state's money.
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.
Two origins of the discus
The Sudarshana is either Shiva's gift at Kashi after Vishnu offers his own eye in place of a missing lotus, or Vishvakarma's work from the radiance shaved off the sun.
Vamana and King Bali
The generous asura king Bali grants a dwarf brahmin three paces of land; two strides cover heaven and earth, Bali offers his own head for the third and is sent to rule Sutala with Vishnu as his doorkeeper.
Vishnumoorthi comes down in the Theyyam
In north Malabar the man-lion's killing of Hiranyakashipu is not read but danced, by a performer who is believed to become the god.