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.
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Pl. IRegional folklore
Veeravati and the False Moon: The Fast Her Brothers Could Not Bear to Watch
Veeravati keeps her first Karva Chauth fast at her father's house, surrounded by seven brothers who love her more than they can stand watching her suffer. So they fake the moonrise to end her hunger early, and the fast breaks in a way that was never supposed to happen.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/All ages
Krishna lifts Mount Govardhan, India, 17th c.
Pl. IIRegional 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
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. IVRegional 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
The marriage of Rama and Sita, Shangri Ramayana, c.1700
Pl. VRegional 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
Bhishma on his bed of arrows, Razmnama, 1761 to 1763
Pl. VIRegional 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
Krishna and Arjuna on the chariot, India, 18th to 19th c.
Pl. VIIRegional 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
Krishna lifts Mount Govardhan, India, 17th c.
Pl. VIIIRegional folklore
Akka Mahadevi: the 12th-century Kannada saint who left King Kaushika and clothed herself only in her own hair
Akka Mahadevi was a 12th-century Kannada saint and poet from Udutadi in Karnataka, one of the great voices of the Lingayat and Veerashaiva bhakti movement. In the traditional accounts she was married to King Kaushika, but she walked out of his palace to devote herself wholly to Shiva as Chenna Mallikarjuna, the lord white as jasmine, whom she called her only true husband. She let her hair fall to her ankles, wore nothing else, and walked into the forest singing the Kannada vachanas that still carry her name.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/6 min/Adults
Sudāmā at the glimpse of Krishna’s palace, Pahari, c.1775
Pl. IXRegional 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