Stories 60
Tradition: Vaishnava · clear
Anasuya tests the three gods
Narada provokes the three consorts into sending their husbands to test Anasuya's virtue; she turns them into infants and nurses them; the consorts beg for their husbands and she asks for sons — one three-headed Dattatreya, or three sons.
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.
Baka Brahma's error and Sahampati's plea
In the Pali canon Brahma is a class of deities, not a creator: Baka Brahma is shown his delusion, and Brahma Sahampati begs the Buddha to teach.
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.
Chaitanya, the golden Krishna
Chaitanya of Nabadwip taught the maha-mantra and congregational chanting; Gaudiya Vaishnavas read Bhagavata 11.5.32 as foretelling him as Krishna in a fair form.
Daksha's sacrifice and the death of Sati
At a gathering Shiva stays seated when Daksha enters; Daksha reads it as contempt.
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.
Ganga comes down through Shiva's hair
King Sagara's sixty thousand sons, hunting his stolen sacrificial horse, accuse the sage Kapila and are burnt to ash by his glance.
Hanuman as Shiva's own avatar
Shaiva texts and popular tellings say that when Vishnu chose to be born as Rama, Shiva chose to be born as Hanuman — his eleventh Rudra — to serve him; Vaishnava schools call Hanuman the son and incarnation of Vayu.
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.
How Shri became Vishnu's inseparable consort
The Vedic Shri of prosperity rises from the churned ocean as Lakshmi, surveys every being and chooses Vishnu as her husband.
Jagannath and the Sabara chief
Tradition says Vishnu was first worshipped in the Odisha forest as the blue stone Nilamadhava by the Sabara chief Viswavasu, before returning as the wooden Jagannath; scholars argue over what that means.
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.
Krishna alone: Sankardev's Assam
Sankardev's Ekasarana keeps only Krishna as an object of worship and drops Shiva and Brahma from the cult, sung through the Kirtan Ghosha.
Kumbakonam: Brahma loses the Vedas and wins them back
Brahma boasts that he alone can create.
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.
Madhu and Kaitabha
Two demons born from Vishnu's ear-wax threaten Brahma and steal the Vedas; who saves the day depends on the sect — Vishnu as Hayagriva in the epic line, or the Goddess who must first leave Vishnu's body in the Devi Mahatmya.
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.
Nila Madhava and the unfinished images of Puri
King Indradyumna's priest finds Nila Madhava worshipped by a Sabara chief; the image vanishes; new images are carved from a sea-borne log and left unfinished when the carver is disturbed.
One being, three functions: the Trimurti idea
The Maitri Upanishad names Brahma, Rudra and Vishnu together as portions of one being, matched to the three gunas.
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.
Pundalik's brick
Busy serving his parents when Krishna calls, Pundalik tosses him a brick to stand on; the god waits there still, hands on hips, as Vithoba of Pandharpur.
Purusha and Narayana on the waters
The cosmic person of the Purusha Sukta and the Narayana who rests on the waters are fused into Vishnu's cosmic identity, pictured as Anantashayana.
Rama the monk and Krishna the cousin
Jain tellings keep Rama and Krishna as great men in a fixed roster of sixty-three: Lakshmana kills Ravana, Rama becomes a monk, and Krishna is Neminatha's cousin.
Sankardev's Krishna without an image
Sankardev's Assamese Vaishnavism worships Krishna alone through the divine name and the Bhagavata, and in its strictest order sets a book, not an image, on the altar.
Saraswati: daughter, consort, or both
Brahma's body splits into a male and a female half.
Shiva drinks the poison
Gods and demons churn the ocean of milk for the nectar.
Shrinathji from Govardhan to Nathdwara
Krishna's arm and then his face emerge from Govardhan hill; the image is carried away from Braj in 1672 and stops where its cart wheels sink in Mewar.
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 birth of Ganesha
Parvati wants a guard of her own and shapes a boy from the paste on her body.
The boon that had a loophole: Hiranyakashipu
Hiranyakashipu performs long austerities to win power over the gods.
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 chariot festival of Puri
Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra ride three chariots to the Gundicha temple, stay seven days and return in the Bahuda Yatra.
The churning of the ocean of milk
Gods and demons churn the milk ocean with Mount Mandara on the tortoise's back; poison, treasures, Lakshmi and the nectar emerge, and Vishnu as Mohini keeps the nectar for the gods.
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 fish that warned the Bhils
A fish warns a brother and sister of a flood; afterwards Bhagwan, or in one telling Rama, sends them to repeople the world.
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 god who waited on a brick
Krishna came to Pundalik's door, was told to wait on a brick while the son served his parents, and stayed; the Varkari saints sang to him as Vitthal.
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 lotus from Vishnu's navel
During the dissolution Vishnu lies on the serpent Ananta in the cosmic waters.
The lotus from Vishnu's navel
Vishnu enters the cosmic egg on the causal ocean and a lotus grows from his navel bearing Brahma, who will create the worlds.
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.
Three gods in one guru
Maharashtra folds Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva into the single three-headed guru Dattatreya, whose cult grows from the Guru Charitra and is claimed by Nath and Mahanubhava lines.
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.
Vaikuntha, the abode without care
Vishnu's heavenly abode, its gatekeepers and general, and the two answers to where it lies.
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.
Vrinda's curse and the wedding of Tulsi
Vrinda, deceived by Vishnu in her husband Jalandhara's form, curses him and is reborn as the tulsi plant, whom Vishnu marries every year.
Who made whom: the Bhagavata's creation frame
Brahma, himself born from Vishnu's navel lotus, grows angry when his mind-born sons refuse to procreate; from between his brows a crying child is born and named Rudra, given eleven places, names and consorts, and told to stop creating and practise austerity.
Why Brahma has four heads
Brahma's four heads face the four directions and stand for the four Vedas.