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. IKrishna leela
Sudama walks to Dwarka with a handful of beaten rice
A poor brahmin sets out to see the friend of his boyhood, now a king, and cannot make himself ask for anything. He comes home to find his hut gone.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/7 min/All ages
Krishna lifts Mount Govardhan, India, 17th c.
Pl. IIKrishna leela
The friend who walked to Dwarka with a handful of beaten rice and asked for nothing
He had one friend who had become a king, a wife who had begged four fistfuls of poha from the neighbours, and a sentence he meant to say at the palace door. He walked all the way to Dwarka and all the way home again without ever saying it.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/8 min/All ages
Sudāmā at the glimpse of Krishna’s palace, Pahari, c.1775
Pl. IIIKrishna 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 Battle at Lanka, Sahibdin, Mewar, 1649 to 1653
Pl. IVKrishna 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
The marriage of Rama and Sita, Shangri Ramayana, c.1700
Pl. VKrishna 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
Bhishma on his bed of arrows, Razmnama, 1761 to 1763
Pl. VIKrishna leela
Krishna lifts Govardhan hill and shelters all of Vrindavan
A cowherd boy asked why the village bled its wealth into a sacrifice for a god who lived far away, when the hill and the cattle fed them every single day. The god took offence, and the sky fell.
Vidhata Editorial Desk/9 min/All ages
Krishna and Arjuna on the chariot, India, 18th to 19th c.