Stories 2
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 95
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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Temple legend · 1 telling · contested
Lakshmi as the badri tree at Badrinath
Vishnu meditates in the Himalaya while Lakshmi shelters him as a badri tree; the sages Nara and Narayana choose the site; Shankara recovers the image from the hot spring.
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.