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. IMahabharata
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. IIMahabharata
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. IIIMahabharata
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. IVMahabharata
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
The marriage of Rama and Sita, Shangri Ramayana, c.1700
Pl. VMahabharata
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
Bhishma on his bed of arrows, Razmnama, 1761 to 1763
Pl. VIMahabharata
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
Krishna and Arjuna on the chariot, India, 18th to 19th c.