Stories 7
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
Tradition: Shaiva · clear
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.
Temple legend · 1 telling · contested
Gautama's penance and the Godavari
The sage Gautama and his wife Ahalya live on Brahmagiri in a long drought.
Origin · 5 tellings · contested
How Shiva became half woman
Brahma makes a world of male beings that cannot multiply.
Temple legend · 1 telling · contested
Parvati's penance on the hill of fire
After the quarrel of Brahma and Vishnu the pillar of fire cools into the red hill of Arunachala.
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.
Temple legend · 1 telling · contested
Tirupattur: Brahma rewrites his own fate
Brahma grows proud and Shiva takes away his fifth head and his power to create.