From the epics
Stories from the Indian astrological tradition.
Hand-curated stories from the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavata Purana, Padma Purana, Skanda Purana, Buddhist Jataka tales, the Tamil Sangam corpus, and oral folk traditions of Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra. Each story sourced to a specific text. Five to ten minutes per story. Every translation is hand-authored.
- Catalogue38 stories in printCurated by the Vidhata Editorial Desk5 to 10 minutes each
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Pl. IRegional folklore
The saint who could not choose between two wives, so the Lord himself walked the message
Sundarar, the youngest of the three great Tamil Saiva saints, married Paravai in Tiruvarur and Sangili in Tiruvotriyur, and could not bear to be far from either. When he finally broke a vow and Sangili's curse blinded him, the same Lord who had once stopped his first wedding became a foot-messenger between his two houses.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/All ages
Krishna lifts Mount Govardhan, India, 17th c.
Pl. IIPuranic tales
The girl who composed thirty verses to win Vishnu's heart and walked into his idol on her wedding day
A foundling raised in a Tamil flower garden refused every human suitor and composed the Thiruppavai - thirty Margazhi verses - for the only husband she would have. On her wedding day at Srirangam, she climbed onto the deity's couch and was never seen again. The verses are still sung at dawn through the cold month, in every Vaishnava house in the south.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/All ages
Sudāmā at the glimpse of Krishna’s palace, Pahari, c.1775
Pl. IIIRegional folklore
The woman who tore off her breast and burned a kingdom for justice
When the Pandyan king of Madurai executed her husband on a false charge of theft, Kannagi walked into court holding the proof - an anklet - and after the king had died of shame, she set fire to the city with her own body. The Silappathikaram is the only ancient epic in the world whose central act is a woman's public anger.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/9 min/Adults
The Battle at Lanka, Sahibdin, Mewar, 1649 to 1653
Pl. IVPuranic tales
The sage who kicked Vishnu in the chest to test him, and the goddess who walked out of heaven because of what came next
Sage Bhrigu drew back his foot and struck the Lord of the Universe in the chest. The cosmos went still. What Vishnu did is the famous half of the story. What Lakshmi did, less told, is the deeper one.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/All ages
The marriage of Rama and Sita, Shangri Ramayana, c.1700
Pl. VPuranic tales
The boy who would not stop saying Narayana, and the pillar his father struck in fury that opened, releasing a man-lion
In the throne room, in front of the full court, the demon king pointed at a great stone pillar and asked his small son: "Is your god in this too?" The boy looked at the pillar, then back at his father, and answered yes.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/9 min/All ages
Bhishma on his bed of arrows, Razmnama, 1761 to 1763
Pl. VIPuranic tales
The five-year-old prince who climbed onto his father's lap, was pushed off, and walked into the forest to find a higher throne
When his stepmother told him he had no right to sit on the king's lap, the small boy did not cry for long. He walked into the forest, learned a single mantra, and stood on one foot until the sky itself bent to look at him.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/All ages
Krishna and Arjuna on the chariot, India, 18th to 19th c.
Pl. VIIRegional folklore
The astrologer-bride of Bengal whose father-in-law cut her tongue, and whose verses still tell farmers when to sow
She came from Lanka. She read stars better than any astronomer in the king's court. Her father-in-law, the great Varahamihira, could not bear to be outshone by his son's wife. So he cut her tongue. Twelve hundred years later, Bengali farmers still recite her couplets to know when the rain will come.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/6 min/All ages
Krishna lifts Mount Govardhan, India, 17th c.
Pl. VIIIRegional folklore
The girl raised by a deer in a Medina forest who became goddess of the Bengal tiger country
In the mangrove islands where the Ganga finally meets the sea, every honey-collector and woodcutter, Hindu and Muslim alike, calls on a single goddess before stepping into tiger-country. Her name is Bonbibi, and her story begins not in Bengal at all, but in the deserts of Arabia.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/All ages
Sudāmā at the glimpse of Krishna’s palace, Pahari, c.1775
Pl. IXRegional folklore
The log that floated to Puri, and why the Lord of the Universe has no hands
King Indradyumna saw God in a dream and was told: a piece of fragrant wood will float to the shore of the eastern sea. Carve me from it. The carving was not finished, and that is the entire point.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/6 min/All ages
The Battle at Lanka, Sahibdin, Mewar, 1649 to 1653
Pl. XRegional folklore
The Telugu collector who built a Rama temple with state funds, and went to prison until Rama himself paid the bail
Gopanna was the tax collector of Bhadrachalam under the Golconda Sultan. He used state revenue to build a temple to Rama, was thrown in prison for twelve years, and sang Telugu kirtanas that became the founding repertoire of South Indian devotional music. One night, the Sultan found six lakh gold coins on his pillow, paid by two travellers calling themselves Rama and Lakshmana.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/All ages
The marriage of Rama and Sita, Shangri Ramayana, c.1700
Pl. XIRegional folklore
The 12th-century mystic who walked out of her marriage and clothed herself only in her own hair
Mahadevi was a 12th-century Kannada poet who married a king under one condition and broke the condition the moment he tried to enforce it. She walked out of his palace, removed her clothes, let her hair fall to her ankles, and walked into the forest singing vachanas to her real husband, Lord Chenna Mallikarjuna.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/6 min/Adults
Bhishma on his bed of arrows, Razmnama, 1761 to 1763
Pl. XIIRegional folklore
The hunter who plucked out his own eyes when the Shivalinga began to bleed
Thinnan was an illiterate forest hunter from the hills of Kalahasti. He worshipped Shiva by spitting water from his mouth onto the linga and offering wild boar meat as prasad. When the linga's eye began to bleed, he tore out his own eye to replace it, and reached for the second when the other eye began to bleed too.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/6 min/Adults
Krishna and Arjuna on the chariot, India, 18th to 19th c.
Pl. XIIIJataka tales
The prince who climbed down a cliff to feed a starving tigress with his own body
Prince Mahasattva walked with his two brothers through a forest. They came upon a tigress so weak from hunger that she was about to eat her own newborn cubs. The prince told his brothers to walk on ahead, and went back alone.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/All ages
Krishna lifts Mount Govardhan, India, 17th c.
Pl. XIVJataka tales
The monkey-king who made his own spine the bridge for eighty thousand to escape
A king of Banaras besieged the mango-tree where eighty thousand monkeys lived. The monkey-king Mahakapi tied his feet to a bamboo and stretched his body across the gorge so his troop could run across his back to safety. Then he refused to come down.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/All ages
Sudāmā at the glimpse of Krishna’s palace, Pahari, c.1775
Pl. XVJataka tales
The king who weighed his own flesh against a frightened dove
A dove fled into King Sibi's lap, pursued by a hawk that demanded its lawful meal. The king offered his own flesh in equal weight. Then the scale would not balance, and the king understood what was being asked of him.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/All ages
The Battle at Lanka, Sahibdin, Mewar, 1649 to 1653
Pl. XVIDevi stories
The merchant's wife who asked Shiva to make her a ghoul
Punithavathi was the most beautiful woman in Karaikal, wife of a wealthy merchant, perfumed, garlanded, the envy of the town. After the mango miracle, when her husband fled in fear of her, she asked Shiva for one boon: take away this body. Let me follow you as a skeleton.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/Adults
The marriage of Rama and Sita, Shangri Ramayana, c.1700
Pl. XVIIDevi stories
The goddess who wore earrings to humble a philosopher
When Adi Shankaracharya arrived at Jambukeshwaram, the goddess Akhilandeshwari was so fierce that priests could not approach her sanctum. The young monk did not subdue her with mantras. He gave her a pair of earrings.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/All ages
Bhishma on his bed of arrows, Razmnama, 1761 to 1763
Pl. XVIIIDevi stories
A map of the goddess: walking the fifty-one places her body fell
In Balochistan, Muslim guardians keep watch over a Hindu cave shrine. In Assam, a temple bleeds for three days each year. In Kolkata, the goddess sits in a temple beside a drain. The 51 Shakti-Pithas are the strangest pilgrimage map in the world.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/Adults
Krishna and Arjuna on the chariot, India, 18th to 19th c.
Pl. XIXShiva tales
When Shiva grew a fingernail and used it to cut a god's head off
Brahma, intoxicated with his own power, grew a fifth head and began to speak as the supreme creator. Shiva's small finger curled. A nail extended. It moved once. Then Shiva had to walk the earth for twelve years carrying a god's skull he could not put down.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/All ages
Krishna lifts Mount Govardhan, India, 17th c.
Pl. XXShiva tales
The hunter who pulled out his own eyes for a stone
Kannappa had never read a Veda, never spoken a Sanskrit prayer, and worshipped Shiva by spitting water on the linga and offering raw deer-meat. The orthodox priest who watched in horror saw, by the seventh day, what the hunter's love actually was.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/All ages
Sudāmā at the glimpse of Krishna’s palace, Pahari, c.1775
Pl. 21Shiva tales
The wedding-fire that became a funeral, and the dance that almost ended the world
Daksha's great sacrifice invited every god in heaven, except his own daughter Sati and her husband Shiva. Sati went anyway. By sunset she had walked into her father's fire. By dawn, Shiva was dancing the dance that consumes universes.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/All ages
The Battle at Lanka, Sahibdin, Mewar, 1649 to 1653
Pl. 22Krishna leela
The day Krishna walked alone into Duryodhana's court to prevent a war
In a packed audience hall, on the morning before the eighteen-day war, Krishna made one final offer. Not the kingdom. Not half the kingdom. Five villages, one for each brother, any five the king cared to name. The court went still.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/9 min/All ages
The marriage of Rama and Sita, Shangri Ramayana, c.1700
Pl. 23Krishna leela
The jewel that produced gold each day, and the false accusation Krishna walked into a cave to clear
Within a single afternoon the rumour was through every street of Dwaraka: the king had killed a man for a stone. Krishna heard it and did not deny it. He saddled a horse, picked up three trackers, and rode into the forest to find out what had actually happened.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/All ages
Bhishma on his bed of arrows, Razmnama, 1761 to 1763
Pl. 24Krishna leela
The king who slept through ages, and woke when Krishna ran into his cave
A foreign warlord chased Krishna into a mountain cave, sword drawn, certain he had cornered him. Inside, on a stone slab, lay a sleeping king who had been waiting for this exact intrusion since before Krishna was born.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/All ages
Krishna and Arjuna on the chariot, India, 18th to 19th c.
Pl. 25Mahabharata
The night a half-brother kept a blind king awake until dawn, trying to stop a war
Krishna's peace mission had failed. The war was three weeks away. Dhritarashtra could not sleep. He summoned his half-brother Vidura, son of a maidservant, denied the throne by his birth, and asked him to speak. What followed was a single long argument against the war, delivered between dusk and dawn, by a man who knew it was already too late.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/All ages
Krishna lifts Mount Govardhan, India, 17th c.
Pl. 26Mahabharata
The son who agreed to be sacrificed before dawn, and asked for one wedding night first
Before the great battle, the Pandava priests said victory required the sacrifice of a perfect prince. Iravan, Arjuna's forgotten son by a Naga princess, volunteered. He had only one condition: he could not die unmarried. Krishna himself solved the problem in a way the temple at Koovagam still remembers.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/Adults
Sudāmā at the glimpse of Krishna’s palace, Pahari, c.1775
Pl. 27Mahabharata
The princess whose father rented her womb to four kings to settle a debt
When the sage Galava needed eight hundred horses with one black ear each as guru-dakshina, his friend Yayati had no horses to give. He gave his daughter instead. Her name was Madhavi, and the epic remembers her quietly, the way it remembers all the wounds it could not openly mourn.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/Adults
The Battle at Lanka, Sahibdin, Mewar, 1649 to 1653
Pl. 28Ramayana
What Mandodari said to Ravana on the night before his death
On the last night of the war, Ravana came to his queen Mandodari's chamber. She had not spoken to him in three weeks. That night, she did. The argument she made, quietly, without raising her voice once, was the closest thing to a final mercy the great king ever received.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/Adults
The marriage of Rama and Sita, Shangri Ramayana, c.1700
Pl. 29Ramayana
The headless monster in the forest who pointed Rama to Sugriva
Deep in the Dandaka forest lived a monster with no head, his face set in his belly, his arms eight miles long. He caught Rama and Lakshmana in a single embrace. What he asked them to do, and what he had been before, is one of the strangest redemption stories in the Ramayana.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/All ages
Bhishma on his bed of arrows, Razmnama, 1761 to 1763
Pl. 30Ramayana
The rakshasi who dreamed of Rama's victory before the war began
In the Ashoka grove where Sita was held, an old rakshasi woman named Trijata woke trembling from a dream, and told the other guards exactly how Lanka would burn. The other women laughed at first. By morning they were begging Sita's forgiveness.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/5 min/All ages
Krishna and Arjuna on the chariot, India, 18th to 19th c.
Pl. 31Mahabharata
The king who traded his old age for his son's youth, and what he learned after a thousand years of pleasure
King Yayati was cursed with premature old age. He asked his five sons in turn to give him their youth - only one agreed. After a thousand years living in his son's young body, Yayati realized something his wives, palaces, and conquests had never taught him.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/All ages
Krishna lifts Mount Govardhan, India, 17th c.
Pl. 32Puranic tales
When Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva came to test Anasuya - and ended up as her babies
Anasuya was famous for absolute hospitality. The three goddesses, jealous, sent their husbands - Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva - to her cottage as begging brahmins, with one impossible demand: they would only eat if she served them naked. What she did made all three gods, briefly, into infants.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/All ages
Sudāmā at the glimpse of Krishna’s palace, Pahari, c.1775
Pl. 33Regional folklore
The Bengali bride who put her dead husband in a raft and floated down the river to argue with the gods
On their wedding night, Lakhindar was killed by a snake - the goddess Manasa's revenge for his father's pride. Behula refused to cremate her husband. She built a raft, laid his body on it, and floated downstream for six months until she reached the court of Indra and the gods themselves.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/9 min/All ages
The Battle at Lanka, Sahibdin, Mewar, 1649 to 1653
Pl. 34Jataka tales
The deer-king who walked into a butcher's knife to spare a pregnant doe
King Brahmadatta hunted in the deer park every day. The herd had agreed to send one deer per day, by lottery, to spare the others. When a pregnant doe drew the lot, the deer-king himself walked to the butcher's block in her place. The king who watched changed his life.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/6 min/All ages
The marriage of Rama and Sita, Shangri Ramayana, c.1700
Pl. 35Ramayana
The tribal woman who tasted each berry before offering it to Rama
Shabari was an old, low-caste forest woman who waited her whole life to meet Rama. When he finally came, she did something that should have been ritually unthinkable: she tasted each berry herself before offering it. Rama smiled and ate them all.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/6 min/All ages
Bhishma on his bed of arrows, Razmnama, 1761 to 1763
Pl. 36Puranic tales
The boy who hugged a Shiva-linga and defeated Yama himself
When Yama came at the appointed hour to take 16-year-old Markandeya's life, the boy threw his arms around the Shiva-linga and would not let go. What happened next changed the rules of death.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/All ages
Krishna and Arjuna on the chariot, India, 18th to 19th c.
Pl. 37Mahabharata
The dice that made a king lose his kingdom, and his form
Nala won Damayanti through a swayamvara where four gods competed for her. Then his brother proposed a game of dice. By morning, Nala had lost his kingdom, his clothes, and the very recognizable shape of his face.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/9 min/All ages
Krishna lifts Mount Govardhan, India, 17th c.
Pl. 38Mahabharata
The boy who walked into a king's yajna and stopped a holocaust
King Janamejaya vowed to sacrifice every snake on earth to avenge his father's death. The brahmin boy Astika walked alone into the yajna-shala - and a single sentence stopped the fire.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/6 min/All ages
Sudāmā at the glimpse of Krishna’s palace, Pahari, c.1775