Samjna was the daughter of Vishwakarma, the divine architect. When she became the wife of Surya, she could not stand his heat, so she practiced austerities (tapas) in order to create a substitute. Finally, after having three children—Manu (the first man), Yama (god of death), and Yami (goddess of the…
Shakuntala’s story is one of the favorite love stories of India, told in quite different ways by two great poets—Vyasa and Kalidasa (both c.400-500). (sakuntala was the daughter of a sage and an apsara, and her son became an emperor. Shakuntala’s mother, the famous apsara Menaka, was sent by Indra…
Shakti is a term for the concept of energy (and as such a feminine noun), and it can be said to have been personified as Divine Energy, or the Mother Goddess, the source of energy. The concept is linked to the power of the austerities (tapas), creative and…
The story of Sabari is famous because of her innocent love of Sri Rama. However, this love story is embedded in a rebirth story. (Sabari was Malini in her previous life. She was the daughter of a gandharva king, although she was called an apsara (celestial damsel) by some versions…
Rukmini was the wife of the more mortal version of Krishna. She and Krishna were in love, but her brother Rukmi opposed the marriage. He hated Krishna and arranged a marriage of his sister to King Sisupala. All the kings of the region came to the wedding celebration, including Krishna,…
There are different versions of the number and names of the Rudras. A popular version was that the Rudras were born to Aditi. That would make them adityas (demigods). In the Puranas there were more than eleven Rudras—and they differed in name and number. The eleven Rudras mentioned in…
Rudra was a Vedic god (deva) long before (Siva would have been accepted as Brahmanical, or orthopraxic. However, the name Rudra was eventually appropriated for Siva, as a designation of a manifestation of Siva that was both dangerous and just within the boundaries of respectability. Even before this process was…
Rita was a concept in the Rigveda that was associated with cosmic order, as well as truth and justice. Rita can be said to be a Vedic version of the later concept of dharma. Linguists point out rita’s kinship to the Avestan word asha and Varuna’s place in ancient Persian…
Rishyasringa received his strange name, “deer-horned,” because his mother was a doe. It happened this way: the sage Vibhandaka had been living a strict celibate life at his asrama (hermitage) deep in the forest. One day he saw the beautiful apsara (celestial damsel) named Urvasi. He lost his seed…
The term rishi means “a seer,” or “one who is foresighted.” In the mythology the term rishi is interchangeable with sage, or may even be used for a distinguished priest (brahmin). Another related term would be guru (teacher). The seven sages (sapta-rishis) were also known as the maharishis—the seven. Some…
The Rigveda precedes all other Hindu scriptures in age and sacredness. The name Rigveda is a compound of rik (verses of “praise”) and veda (book of “knowledge,” or “wisdom”). It comes to us in such a highly crafted language (Samskrita, Sanskrit) that it was believed to have been received by…
Ravana was born as the son of Visiravas. Dasanana is another name of Ravana, and it means one who has ten heads. Ravana’s character changed dramatically in the many retellings of his actions as the central antagonist of Rama in the Ramayana. At one extreme Ravana was the consummate expression…
Renuka’s story has many troubling elements. She was a princess (and thus a ksatriya) married to the brahmin Jamdagni. She gave birth to an avatara (incarnation) of Vishnu, Parasu-Rama, whom her husband commanded to kill her. She was brought back to life. In one version she was raped by King…
The Ramayana is one of the two great Epics of Hindu mythological literature. The other is the Mahabharata. The Ramayana was said to have been authored by the sage Valmiki. The Ramayana dealt with the story of Sri Rama and Sita. The Ramayana is divided into two sections, the first…
The Rama myth cycle is especially complex because there are so many literary and oral versions, each language of India having its own variations, as well as expressions in art, dance, drama, and film or video. Since Rama was an incarnation of Vishnu, his story is nested within the Vishnu…
Rakshasas were often described as a subset of the asuras. Other subsets were yakshas and daityas. The word rakshasa came from the root raksh, meaning to guard. They may have originally been guardians, as one myth indicated that when Brahma created the waters, he created rakshasas to guard them. Individual…
Rahu can be seen as the earliest Vedic astrological pre-science embedded in a story—the ascending and descending nodes created as the moon’s orbit intersects the ecliptic plane of the earth, used in predicting solar and lunar eclipses. Mythologically, Rahu was one of the great demons (daityas) at the Churning of…
The consort of Sr Krishna Radha is one of the most popular figures in Hindu mythology and is even understood by some to be a manifestation of the Supreme. Radha has many personas and a complex mythology. Radha is the young, innocent maiden coming into the forest at night in…
Pushan was the son of Surya, the sun, or an aditya, a son of Kashyapa (a progenitor) and Aditi. He was reduced in later mythology to a guardian of the roads, to toothlessness, and to an eater of gruel. Pushan was an early Vedic god (deva) who was connected with…
Purusha meant “man” and later by extension “soul” or “consciousness.” It was utilized both in Hindu mythology and philosophy—often in quite divergent ways. In the various philosophical-theological schools (darsanas), purusha shared contexts with atman (self), brahman (Absolute), kshetrajna (the knower of the field). In the great creation hymn of the…
Purana means “ancient” and thus this body of literature claimed to be authoritative, especially for the kali yuga (the present age). Scholars date their composition in three periods (300-500; 500-1000; 1000-1800). Puranas deal with both philosophical and existential issues, mostly presented through a poetic narrative. The five topics covered in…
Prana means “breath” or “life” and by extension could mean “energy” or “life force.” There was one hymn in the Atharvaveda in which Prana was personified as a deva (god). It was, however, as life force that prana appeared in Hindu mythology. In the practice of yoga (especially hatha yoga)…
Pralaya (“dissolution”) generally meant the destruction of one creation before the next. Chapter 2 deals with Hindu conceptions of time and of multiple creations. The Agni Purana mentioned four kinds of pralaya: a daily destruction (nitya pralaya), the destruction at the end of a kalpa or a day of Brahma…
(1) Matter; (2) A goddess Prakriti was a term meaning nature, origin, or progress, which was used to express one of the foundational ideas of India’s earliest philosophical system, Samkhya (or Sankhya). In Samkhya prakriti was the category of matter or materiality. Hindu mythology simplified Samkhya complexity and even personified…
Prajapati was first a Vedic god (deva) of real importance, only to be reduced over the centuries to the function of a group (rank) of gods. Prajapati literally means the lord of creatures, of living beings. During the period of the Brahmanas he was the supreme being and father of…
Prahlada was the son of the asura Hiranyakashipu. His father became emperor of the demons and attempted to have everyone worship him. However, his own son, Prahlada, refused and continued to worship Vishnu. Prahlada would have been killed if Vishnu had not incarnated in just the right way, as the…
The pitris were first a class of demigods (not quite full devas, gods), as well as the “fathers” or “ancestor spirits.” As a class of demigods they were connected with the ritualistic offerings to the spirits of the dead. One of the earliest concepts of an afterlife spoke of the…
Pasupati was an epithet for a divinity that meant “lord of the creatures (pasu)” and “lord of cattle (pasu).” In the early Vedic hymns this appellation pointed to Agni, the god of fire, whose divine heat (tapas) was creative and destructive (rudra). Another figure, Purusha (the first man), was also…
Parvati, goddess of the mountain, Himalaya, primary wife of Siva, mother of at least two of Siva’s sons, is by far the most complicated of Hindu goddesses. She is given differing and often contradictory natures by the three main perspectives of later mythology—Saktas (those who worship the divine mother), Saivas…
Parikshit had a miraculous birth. At the very end of the war told of in the Mahabharata, one of the last surviving Kauravas launched the magical weapon of Brahma (a Brahmashira) to exterminate all of the Pandavas, but Arjuna had an equal weapon that he launched to defeat it. However,…
The story of “Ax Rama” (the literal meaning of Parasu-Rama) contains a chilling warning to the kings and rulers of India. Brahmins could revolt against them if their rule was unjust or cruel. The story proving the need for an incarnation of Vishnu began with the curse of a sage….
Parasara was born to Saktri and his wife Adrisyanti. Parasara’s father Saktri was eaten by a rakshasa (night-wandering demon) before he was born. So Parasara grew up with an immense hatred for Rakshasas. So this great sage of the sacrificial lore performed a mighty sacrifice (yaga) that began destroying all…
Pandu was born of the sage Vyasa and Ambalika. The child was named Pandu because of his pale skin. It was a substitutionary parentage—one in which a king used a sage to have a child by his queen. (For more details see the entries on Dhritarashthra and Vyasa.) One day…
Three sons were born to Pandu and his wife Kunti, and two sons were born by his second wife Madri. They were in the order of birth: Dharmaputra (Yud- hishthira), Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva.
Literally, panca-kanya means the five “girls” or “daughters,” but it is used in Hindu mythology to refer to five heroines. The list does vary, especially as some of the heroines were defamed by the mythmakers of the Puranic period. The five ideal women are role models for all Hindus. They…
In the Vedic period Om became the holiest invocation (mantra) in Hindu mythology and religion. Om was a contraction of the vowels a and u and the anusvara m. In this one sound were encapsulated the conceptions about sound (Vac), about its effectiveness in the Vedic fire rituals, and about…
Narayana was one of the four sons of the god (deva) Dharma. Dharma-deva had been born from the breast of Brahma. Dharma-deva married the ten daughters of Daksha. His four sons were Nara, Narayana, Hari, and Krishna. Nara and Narayana became great Rishis (sages) practicing severe penances. They stayed in…
Narasimha was the man-lion incarnation of Vishnu. He was the fourth of ten incarnations and was half man (nara) and half lion (simha). An appearance of Lord Vishnu was needed to defeat each of the rebirths of the demon twins, Jaya and Vijaya, who sprang from a curse by Vishnu…
Hiranyaksha in the form of a boar had abducted the earth, Bhumi, and taken her to Patala, one of the netherworlds. On the way his tusks touched Bhumi, and she became pregnant with Naraka. Vishnu came in the form of a boar, Varaha, and killed Hiranyaksha. Vishnu rescued Bhumi and…
After Brahma had created the seven sages (sapta-rishis) from his mind (manasa- putras), he created Rudra (a storm god) from his anger, Narada from his lap, Daksha (a progenitor) from his right thumb, and Virani from his left. The Puranas accounted for seven of his rebirths, including as a gandharva…
Nara was one of the four sons of the god (deva) Dharma. Dharma-deva had been born from the breast of Brahma. Dharma-deva married the ten daughters of Dak- sha. His four sons were Nara, Narayana, Hari, and Krishna. Nara and Narayana became great ascetics, practicing severe penances. They stayed in…
Nandi was both a divine bull and a human manifestation of Siva. One account stated that Kandikeshvara (the tawny-colored dwarf), or Adhi- kara-Nandin, had lived a good and long life that was coming to an end. He prayed to Siiva for a longer life, and Siiva not only granted his…
Nalakubera had a god, Kubera (god of wealth), as his father and his grandson was Visiravas—in his dark, or demonic, lineage. In a lineage that seemed to recognize more of Kubera’s divinity, Nalakubera’s grandfather (prajapati) was Pulastya (a progenitor). The demon Ravana was Nalakubera’s uncle. Ravana, the constant womanizer, raped…
King Nala of Nishada, son of Vipassana, and were known as great lovers in the Puranic literature. They were foresters in their previous births— with the same name, Ahuka and Ahuka. They were granted a boon by Siva that they would be born in royal families in their following birth….
Nakula and his brother Sahadeva were born to King Pandu and his wife Madri. However, their birth was not normal—a curse prevented Pandu from touching his wives on pain of death, and a magical incantation had allowed their mother to have twins by the Asvins (the twin divine physicians)….
Even before his birth, Nausha has been proclaimed as the one to kill the demon (asura) that attempted to violate Parvati’s “wish-born” daughter, Asiokasundari. In the Epics and Puranas Parvati had been taken to the most beautiful garden in heaven by Siva in the midst of their love play (lila)….
The Nag’s were the race of serpents or snakes who were born from Kasyapa-pra- japati (a progenitor) by his wife Karda. Many had divine powers and were neutral as far as their relationship with the gods was concerned. It was their great power that made them threatening to humans. When…
Naciketas was born to the sage Vajasiravas (also known as Aruni). Naciketas’s dialogue with Yama (death) was made famous in the Katha Upanishad. Vajasravas believed that he would gain heaven (svarga) by giving cattle as charity (or perhaps to the gods in sacrifice). The young Naciketas noticed that the cows…
Murukan was a Tamil god, who has been identified with Skanda, Siva’s son. Like Skanda, Murukan is a god of war and a god of love. He is always young, heroic, and handsome. Murukan is the most widely worshipped of the gods in much of South India, especially Tamil Nadu….
Mohini appeared at the churning of the Milky Ocean, again for the birth of a river and a divine monkey, and then for the incarnation of a sage. In order to prevent the asuras (demons) from obtaining their share of the divine nectar of immortality (amrita) that was…