Stories 5
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
✕ iconography
devotionbooncreationdisguisesupremacycursemarriagepenancepridetestdancepilgrimagesacrificebirthemanationfirebeheadingdemon slayingdesireausteritychurningcombined formcosmogonyhomecominglingapoisonrebirthriveratonement
In stone and bronze · 3 tellings · contested
The Elephanta bust: Trimurti or Sadashiva?
A seven-metre three-faced bust fills the south wall of Elephanta's Cave 1.
In stone and bronze · 2 tellings · contested
The so-called Trimurti cave at Mahabalipuram
Three Pallava shrines on one platform: Shiva in the centre, Vishnu on the right, and a disputed left shrine read as Brahma by Vogel but as Subrahmanya or Brahmasasta by later scholars; a Durga panel stands beside.
In stone and bronze · 1 telling
The three gods together on the Kailasa temple, Ellora
Genuine three-god scenes carved on Ellora's Kailasa: Lingodbhava with Brahma and Vishnu searching the pillar, Tripurantaka with Brahma as charioteer and Vishnu as arrow, and Harihara with Nandi and Garuda.
In stone and bronze · 1 telling · contested
The triple shrine of Phnom Bok
A Khmer hilltop temple of Yasovarman I with three towers for Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma — a rare true Trimurti set — within a Cambodian tradition whose main composite cult was Harihara.
Origin · 2 tellings · contested
Why Brahma has four heads
Brahma's four heads face the four directions and stand for the four Vedas.