Explore the pantheons

Sixteen-year-old son of Arjuna who knew how to enter the spiral battle-formation but not how to leave it, a lesson half-heard in the womb. Surrounded by six warriors at once, his death broke every rule of war and hardened the conflict past mercy.

The boundless mother of the gods, whose sons, the Adityas, include Varuna, Mitra, and Indra. In Puranic telling she is also mother of Vishnu's dwarf avatar Vamana.

The diminutive sage who drank the ocean dry to expose hiding demons, humbled the Vindhya mountains, and carried Vedic tradition south, Tamil tradition reveres him as the father of its grammar.

God of fire and the mouth of the gods, every offering poured into the sacrificial flame reaches heaven through him. Second only to Indra in Vedic hymns, he is witness to oaths and weddings to this day.

Wife of the sage Gautama, deceived by Indra in her husband's form and cursed to become invisible, in later tellings, a stone, until the touch of Rama's foot released her. Every era has retold her story to argue about her innocence.

The four-tusked white elephant who rose from the churning of the ocean of milk and became the mount of Indra, king of the gods. His trunk reaches into the underworld to draw up water that the clouds pour back as rain.

The jeweled celestial city of Indra, filled with gandharvas and apsaras and cooled by the wish-granting trees of paradise.

Son of the slain Vali, made crown prince of the vanaras. He led the southern search party and delivered Rama's final ultimatum in Ravana's own court, planting his foot so firmly no demon could move it.

Beautiful water-and-cloud nymphs of Indra's heaven, sent to charm ascetics from their penance; Menaka and Urvashi are among the most famous.

Third of the Pandava brothers, son of Indra, the greatest archer of his age and Krishna's dearest friend. His collapse of will on the battlefield of Kurukshetra is the occasion for the Bhagavad Gita.

The twin horsemen of the dawn, physicians of the gods who rescue sailors, restore youth, and heal the maimed. Divine fathers of the Pandava twins Nakula and Sahadeva.

Drona's son, who avenged his father by slaughtering the Pandava camp in its sleep. Cursed by Krishna to wander the earth immortal, wounded and alone, until the end of the age.

One of the seven great seers, whose wife Anasuya's virtue humbled the wives of the gods. Through their austerities the couple received Soma, Dattatreya, and Durvasa as sons, partial births of the Trimurti.

The capital of the Kosala kingdom on the Sarayu river, ruled by the line of Ikshvaku, birthplace of Rama and the throne he returns to after fourteen years of exile. A byword for the ideal realm.

Son of Shiva and Vishnu-as-Mohini, raised by a Pandya king. His hilltop shrine at Sabarimala draws one of the largest pilgrimages on earth, a strictly regional tradition that entered no classical Sanskrit canon.

Krishna's elder brother, wielder of the plough, counted in most lists as an avatar of the world-serpent Shesha, though some traditions name him an avatar of Vishnu himself. He sat out the Kurukshetra war, refusing to fight either side.

One of the seven great seers, a tireless student of the Vedas, father of the warrior-teacher Drona, and the sage whose hermitage hosts Rama at the start of his exile.

The brother for whose sake Rama was exiled, who wanted none of it. Refusing the stolen throne, he ruled fourteen years as regent from a village outside the capital, with Rama's sandals on the throne.

Second Pandava, son of the wind god Vayu, strongest of men. He swore to tear open Dushasana's chest and shatter Duryodhana's thigh for Draupadi's humiliation, and kept both terrible vows.

Son of Ganga who swore lifelong celibacy so his father could remarry, receiving in exchange the power to choose his moment of death. Grandsire of both armies, he fought for the throne he was bound to, against the family he loved, and died on a bed of arrows.

The great sage who kicked Vishnu in the chest to test which god was worthiest, and judged him supreme when the god responded with concern rather than anger. Legendary author of astrological lore.

The creator god of the Trimurti, born from a lotus rising from Vishnu's navel. Though he shapes each cosmic cycle, he receives almost no worship, a fact the myths themselves explain through curses.

The most terrible of celestial weapons, invoked by mantra and answerable to Brahma, capable of laying waste to armies and lands. The epics warn that two loosed against each other could scorch the world barren.

Preceptor of the gods, who guides the devas in ritual and counsel. His rivalry with Shukra, teacher of the asuras, frames the endless war between gods and demons.

The moon god, also called Soma, whose waxing and waning the myths explain as a curse for favoring one wife among the twenty-seven lunar mansions. Ancestor of the lunar dynasty of kings.

The registrar of the dead who sits beside Yama, keeping a perfect ledger of every soul's deeds, read out at judgment. Patron deity of the scribe castes.

The princess who chose the mortal Nala over the gods themselves, recognizing him because he alone cast a shadow. When ruin scattered them, it was her wit, announcing a second swayamvara no true husband would allow, that drew him back.

King of Ayodhya, bound by two old boons to his wife Kaikeyi that exiled his beloved Rama. He died of grief within days, fulfilling an old curse that he, who had once killed a hermit boy by accident, would die bereft of a son.

Krishna's birth mother, imprisoned by her brother Kamsa, who killed six of her newborns to cheat a prophecy. Her seventh and eighth children, Balarama and Krishna, escaped him.

Physician of the gods who rose from the churned ocean of milk carrying the pot of amrita, the nectar of immortality. Regarded as the divine source of Ayurveda.

The blind king of Hastinapura whose inability to check his son Duryodhana, seeing every wrong and preventing none, makes him the epic's study in culpable weakness. He hears the entire war through Sanjaya's divine sight.

The five-year-old prince turned away from his father's lap by a jealous stepmother, who marched into the forest and meditated until Vishnu himself appeared. He was set in the sky as the Pole Star, the fixed point that never wavers.

Born full-grown from a fire altar, wife of all five Pandavas. Her public humiliation in the dice hall, saved from disrobing by Krishna's grace, becomes the moral engine of the entire war.

Brahmin master of arms who trained both Pandavas and Kauravas, and fought for the Kauravas out of obligation. He laid down his weapons only when told, deceptively, that his son Ashwatthama was dead.

King of Panchala, humiliated in a feud with his boyhood friend Drona. From his vengeance sacrifice rose Dhrishtadyumna, destined to kill Drona, and Draupadi, destined to change everything.

The warrior goddess formed from the combined radiance of all the gods to slay the buffalo demon Mahishasura, whom no male god could defeat. In Shakta tradition she is not an emanation of the gods but the supreme power behind them.

The irascible sage born of Shiva's anger, whose hair-trigger curses drive plot after plot: it is his curse that makes Shakuntala forgotten, and his gift that lets Kunti summon gods as fathers.

Eldest of the hundred Kaurava brothers, whose refusal to yield the Pandavas so much as five villages made the war inevitable. Even his enemies granted him courage and generosity, to everyone but his cousins.

Duryodhana's brother who dragged Draupadi by the hair into the assembly and tried to strip her. Bhima kept his vow: he tore open Dushasana's chest on the battlefield and drank his blood.

The island-city Krishna builds in the western sea as his kingdom, said to have sunk beneath the waves at his passing.

The tribal prince Drona refused to teach, who mastered archery before a clay image of the guru, and surpassed Arjuna. Drona demanded his right thumb as teacher's fee. He gave it without hesitation.

Wife of the blind Dhritarashtra, who bound her own eyes for life in solidarity. When all hundred of her sons lay dead, her grief-curse struck Krishna himself: his clan too would destroy itself in thirty-six years. It did.

Heavenly singers and musicians of Indra's court, masters of sacred music and often paired with the dancing apsaras; in the epics they can be warriors and lovers as readily as performers.

The unbreakable bow given to Arjuna by the fire-god Agni, sounding like thunder and never failing in battle. Inseparable from its hero, it wins the war at Kurukshetra and is surrendered only when his age is done.

The elephant-headed son of Parvati and Shiva, invoked at the start of every undertaking. Beheaded by Shiva in a tragic misunderstanding and restored with an elephant's head, he became the remover of obstacles and lord of beginnings.

The river Ganges as a goddess, brought down from heaven by King Bhagiratha's penance, her fall broken by Shiva's matted hair. Mother of Bhishma, and purifier of the living and the dead.

The king of birds and mount of Vishnu, born of Kashyapa and Vinata. He stormed heaven itself to steal the nectar that freed his mother from slavery, and won Vishnu's friendship by asking nothing for himself.

The sage whose wife Ahalya was seduced by Indra in disguise. His curse turned her to stone and covered Indra with a thousand marks of shame, a story every version retells differently.

Half-rakshasa son of Bhima and Hidimbi, a giant master of night-illusions. His death was a sacrifice by design: Karna was forced to spend on him the divine spear he had saved to kill Arjuna.

The vanara (monkey) hero who leaps the ocean to find Sita and burns Lanka with his flaming tail. In Valmiki he is a mighty ally; in later Bhakti tradition he becomes a god in his own right, the embodiment of selfless devotion.

The king who gave up his kingdom, sold his wife and son, and worked as a cremation-ground keeper rather than break his word, tested to the point of demanding a fee to cremate his own child. The gods restored everything; his name became the byword for truthfulness.

The Kuru capital on the Ganga, throne of the blind king Dhritarashtra and prize of the dice-game that dooms his house.

The rakshasa woman who fell in love with Bhima the night he killed her brother, and won him for a season. Mother of Ghatotkacha, whom she raised alone and sent to die for his father's people.

The demon emperor whose boon made him unkillable by man or beast, by day or night, indoors or out, by any weapon. He tortured his own son for worshipping Vishnu, and every clause of his boon was turned against him by the man-lion at twilight on the threshold.

Hiranyakashipu's brother, who dragged the earth to the bottom of the cosmic ocean. Vishnu took the form of the boar Varaha, lifted her out on his tusks, and slew him after a thousand-year duel.

King of the gods in the Vedic age, wielder of the thunderbolt vajra and slayer of the dragon Vritra. In later Puranic literature his stature shrinks: he remains king of heaven but is repeatedly humbled by Vishnu, Shiva, and even mortals.

Ravana's son Meghanada, called Indrajit for defeating Indra himself. Fighting invisible from the clouds, he twice felled Rama and Lakshmana with serpent-arrows; only Lakshmana, exploiting the one gap in his ritual armor, could kill him.

The splendid city the Pandavas raise from a wilderness, whose hall of illusions provokes Duryodhana's envy and the fatal dice-match.

The immortal king of bears, present since the churning of the ocean. It is he who reminds Hanuman of his forgotten powers before the leap to Lanka, and he who fought Krishna for the Syamantaka jewel and gave him his daughter in marriage.

King of Mithila who found the infant Sita in a furrow while ploughing, and raised her as his own. Celebrated in the Upanishads as the model of the king who rules while inwardly renounced.

Emperor of Magadha, twice-born from two half-bodies joined by a demoness, and killable only by tearing him apart again. He besieged Mathura seventeen times; Bhima finally split him in a fourteen-day wrestling match at Krishna's prompting.

The aged vulture king who threw himself against Ravana's chariot to stop Sita's abduction and was mortally wounded. He lived just long enough to tell Rama what had happened, and received funeral rites from Rama's own hands.

King of Sindhu who held the gap that trapped Abhimanyu to his death. Arjuna vowed to kill him by the next sunset or burn himself alive, and Krishna briefly hid the sun to make it happen.

Dasharatha's favorite queen, who once saved his life in battle and held two unspent boons. Poisoned by her maid Manthara's counsel, she spent them to crown her son and exile Rama, and lived to be forgiven by the very stepson she wronged.

The black goddess of time and dissolution, garlanded with severed heads, who springs from Durga's brow in battle. Terrifying to demons but a mother to her devotees, in Shakta and Tantric traditions, the ultimate reality itself.

The many-hooded serpent whose venom poisoned the river Yamuna until the boy Krishna danced upon his hoods and banished him, sparing his life at the pleading of the serpent's wives.

The avatar yet to come: a rider on a white horse with a blazing sword who will end the dark age of Kali Yuga, destroy the corrupt, and begin the cycle of ages anew.

God of desire whose sugarcane bow fires five flower arrows. Burned to ash by Shiva's third eye for daring to interrupt the great god's meditation, then restored, bodiless, as love that pervades everything.

The divine cow of plenty who yields whatever is desired, kept by the sage Vasishtha. A king's attempt to seize her from him ignites one of the great rivalries of the sages.

The tyrant of Mathura, warned that his sister's eighth child would kill him. He imprisoned her, murdered her infants, and sent demon after demon against the escaped child, who returned at sixteen and threw him from his own throne.

Son of Surya and Kunti, abandoned at birth and raised by a charioteer. Scorned by the princes, befriended by Duryodhana, he fought his own brothers out of loyalty and died when his chariot wheel sank, the epic's great tragic figure.

The six-faced war god, son of Shiva born to destroy the demon Taraka, commander of the armies of heaven. Worshipped in Tamil tradition as Murugan, where he remains one of the most beloved of all gods.

The primeval sage from whose many wives descend nearly everything that lives, gods from Aditi, demons from Diti, serpents from Kadru, birds from Vinata. Grandfather, in effect, of the whole contending cosmos.

The mighty mace of Vishnu, one of his four emblems along with the discus, conch, and lotus.

Eldest queen of Dasharatha and mother of Rama, whose quiet endurance of her co-wife's coup and her son's exile makes her the epic's figure of dignified sorrow.

The headless trunk of the severed asura Rahu, made an immortal shadow-planet. In astrology he signifies loss, moksha, and detachment from the material.

Half-human, half-bird celestial beings famed for music and devoted love, dwelling in the Himalayan realm of Kubera.

Preceptor of the Kuru princes alongside Drona and one of the war's handful of survivors on the Kaurava side. Counted among the immortals who live on into the next age.

The eighth avatar of Vishnu: cowherd, prince, and counselor. As Arjuna's charioteer in the Mahabharata he delivers the Bhagavad Gita. In Bhakti traditions he is worshipped not as an avatar but as the supreme god himself.

Lord of wealth and king of the yakshas, guardian of the north. Original ruler of Lanka until his half-brother Ravana seized it, along with the flying chariot Pushpaka.

Ravana's colossal brother, tricked by the gods into sleeping six months at a stretch. Woken for the war, he told Ravana plainly that he was wrong, then fought and died for him anyway, because he was his brother.

Mother of the Pandavas, who could summon any god to father a child. Her secret firstborn, Karna, abandoned in a basket on the river, grew up to fight his own brothers.

The tortoise avatar of Vishnu, whose shell bore the weight of Mount Mandara so that gods and demons could churn the ocean of milk for the nectar of immortality.

The sacred plain north of Delhi where the eighteen-day war of the Mahabharata was fought, and where Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna between the armies. Called the "field of dharma" in the epic's first line.

Twin of Lava, raised by Valmiki, taught to sing his father's story before his father's court. The two boys' recital reveals their identity and brings the exiled Sita's story to its end.

Rama's younger brother and shadow, who chose fourteen years of exile rather than be parted from him, and is said never to have slept through them. Regarded as an incarnation of the serpent Shesha.

Goddess of fortune and abundance who emerged from the churning of the cosmic ocean and chose Vishnu as her consort. She incarnates alongside his avatars, as Sita with Rama, as Rukmini with Krishna.

The gold-walled island citadel of the rakshasa king Ravana, where Sita was held captive. Once Kubera's, seized by his half-brother, and burned by Hanuman before Rama's army crossed the sea to storm it.

Twin son of Rama and Sita, born in Valmiki's forest hermitage after Sita's banishment. With his brother Kusha he sang the Ramayana before Rama himself, the epic containing its own first performance.

The demon king so virtuous his rule rivaled heaven, undone not by sin but by boundless generosity, granting the dwarf Vamana his three paces. Pressed to the netherworld by Vishnu's foot, he was granted one return a year: Kerala's Onam festival welcomes him still.

The buffalo demon whose boon, that no man or god could kill him, left one fatal omission. He drove the gods from heaven and fell to the goddess Durga, shifting shapes to the last: buffalo, lion, elephant, man.

A composite sea-creature, part crocodile, part fish, part elephant, that serves as the vehicle (vahana) of the ocean-lord Varuna and the river goddess Ganga, and as the emblem on the banner of the love-god Kamadeva.

Ravana's chief queen, wise and blameless, who begged him to return Sita. Counted among the five perfect women of tradition, married to its most infamous abductor.

Kaikeyi's hunchbacked maid, whose whispered fears, planted the night before Rama's coronation, turned a queen's love to panic and set the entire epic in motion. Literature's case study in the power of a counselor.

The first man and lawgiver of this age, warned by Vishnu's fish avatar of the coming deluge. His ship, moored to the fish's horn, carried the seeds of all life over the flood, humanity are his descendants, the manavas.

The demon who became the golden deer that lured Rama from the hermitage, under Ravana's death-threat, having once already survived Rama's arrow. Dying, he cried out in Rama's voice to draw Lakshmana away too.

The boy sage destined to die at sixteen who clung to Shiva's linga as Yama's noose fell; Shiva slew Death himself to save him, granting him eternal youth. He alone survives the dissolution of the cosmos to see Vishnu as a child on a banyan leaf.

Vishnu's fish avatar, who warned Manu of the coming deluge and towed his ship to safety over the flood, saving humankind, the sages, and the Vedas themselves.

Vishnu's female form, the enchantress who beguiled the asuras out of the nectar of immortality at the churning of the ocean. Her union with Shiva, in southern tradition, produces the god Ayyappa.

The silver Himalayan peak that is the earthly seat of Shiva and Parvati and the axis of the world in Hindu cosmology. Also revered as the paradise from which the treasure-god Kubera rules the north.

The golden world-mountain at the center of the cosmos, around which sun and stars revolve and on whose slopes the gods dwell.

Fourth Pandava, twin son of the Ashvins by Madri, famed as the most beautiful man of his age and a master of horses and swordplay.

The king of Nishadha, peerless charioteer and cook, possessed by the spirit of the fallen age into gambling away his kingdom. Disfigured and in exile, he was won back to himself by Damayanti's stratagem, the epics' great romance of loss and reunion.

Chief of the cowherds of Gokul and Krishna's foster father, entrusted with the infant smuggled across the river on the night of his birth.

The white bull who is Shiva's mount, doorkeeper, and foremost devotee. Every Shiva temple seats a stone Nandi facing the shrine, gazing eternally at his lord.

The wandering celestial sage with his veena, moving freely between gods, demons, and mortals. Devotee of Vishnu and cosmic gossip, his well-timed provocations set half the great stories in motion.

The many hells where Yama's servants punish the wicked before rebirth, catalogued in vivid detail in the Puranas.

The demon king who stole the earrings of the mother of the gods and imprisoned sixteen thousand princesses. Krishna, with Satyabhama beside him, stormed his fortress and freed them; his death is celebrated as Diwali's Naraka Chaturdashi.

The man-lion avatar who burst from a pillar at twilight, neither man nor beast, indoors nor out, to disembowel the demon king Hiranyakashipu on his own threshold, exploiting every loophole in the tyrant's boon of invulnerability.

A creature assembled from nine different animals, with the head of a rooster and limbs of many beasts, in which Krishna revealed himself to Arjuna, a lesson that the divine exceeds any single form the mind can hold.

Shumbha's brother and general, slain by the goddess in the battles that precede her final duel with the demon king, the Devi Mahatmya's escalating war against the goddess herself.

Krishna's conch-shell trumpet, won from a slain sea-demon, whose blast opens the war of the Mahabharata.

Father-in-name of the Pandavas, cursed to die if he ever embraced a woman, which is why his sons were fathered by gods. He died as the curse foretold.

The battle-axe given by Shiva to Parashurama, the "Rama with the axe," with which he cleared the earth of tyrant kings.

The axe-wielding warrior-sage avatar who annihilated the kshatriya warrior class twenty-one times over to avenge his father's murder. An immortal who later appears as a teacher in both epics.

Daughter of the mountain Himavan who won the ascetic Shiva through her own fierce austerities. Mother of Ganesha and Kartikeya, she is the gentle face of the same great Goddess whose fierce forms are Durga and Kali.

The most destructive of Shiva's weapons, granted to Arjuna after his mountain penance; it may never be loosed against a lesser foe.

The great bow of Shiva; the breaking of such a bow at her bridegroom-contest wins Sita for Rama.

Ghoulish flesh-eating spirits of darkness and disease in the epic-Puranic demonology, haunting battlefields and cremation grounds.

Son of the demon emperor Hiranyakashipu and devotee of Vishnu from the womb. Thrown from cliffs, trampled, poisoned, and burned for his faith, he emerged serene from every attempt, the archetype of the devotee whom God protects.

A flying palace-chariot that moves at its owner's will, originally Kubera's, seized by Ravana, and flown home by Rama across all of India after the fall of Lanka.

The demoness sent by Kamsa who came as a beautiful nurse with poisoned breasts. The infant Krishna suckled out her life instead, and because she had held him as a mother would, she was granted a mother's salvation.

The cowherd girl of Vrindavan whose love for Krishna became Bhakti tradition's supreme symbol of the soul's longing for God. Almost absent from the early texts, she rises in medieval devotion to be worshipped beside, even above, Krishna.

The asura who sneaked a sip of the immortality nectar; beheaded by Vishnu's discus mid-swallow, his undying head now chases and swallows the sun and moon, the mythic cause of eclipses.

The demon whose every drop of spilled blood birthed a duplicate of himself, drowning the battlefield in his own copies, until Kali spread her tongue across the earth and drank every drop before it fell.

Prince of Ayodhya and seventh avatar of Vishnu, hero of the Ramayana. Exiled for fourteen years, he rescues his wife Sita from the demon king Ravana. Held up as the ideal of dharma, the perfect son, husband, and king.

The ten-headed rakshasa king of Lanka, antagonist of the Ramayana. Not a simple villain: a master of the Vedas, a formidable ruler, and a devout worshipper of Shiva whose boons made him nearly invincible, undone by abducting Sita.

Princess of Vidarbha and chief queen of Krishna, who wrote asking him to carry her off on the eve of her forced wedding. Regarded as an incarnation of Lakshmi.

Youngest Pandava, twin of Nakula, the quiet scholar of the brothers. He knew the future through astrology but was bound, or chose, never to reveal it unasked.

Charioteer-counselor to the blind king, granted divine vision by Vyasa to see the entire war from afar. The Bhagavad Gita reaches us as his live report to Dhritarashtra.

Goddess of wisdom and the arts, consort of Brahma, depicted with the veena and a white swan. She begins as a sacred river in the Rig Veda and becomes the patroness of all learning.

Krishna's fiery queen who rode to war beside him against the demon Narakasura. Her pride, famously weighing Krishna against her wealth in the Tulabharam story, is the counterpoint to Rukmini's humility.

The fisher-girl whose price for marrying King Shantanu, that her sons inherit, cost Bhishma his throne and his line. Mother of Vyasa before her marriage; matriarch whose choices shape the entire epic.

The princess who married Satyavan knowing he had a year to live, then followed Yama himself as he carried off her husband's soul, and argued the god of death, boon by careful boon, into giving him back.

The old ascetic woman of the Bhakti imagination who waited a lifetime for Rama and offered him berries she had tasted first to be sure they were sweet. He ate them as the sweetest of offerings, devotion outranking ritual purity.

Prince of Gandhara and Duryodhana's uncle, whose loaded dice won the rigged game that exiled the Pandavas. The epic's master manipulator, feeding his nephew's envy toward mutual ruin.

Daughter of a sage and a celestial nymph, secretly married to King Dushyanta, who, under Durvasa's curse, forgot her entirely until a lost ring restored his memory. Mother of Bharata, after whom India is named.

The slow-moving god of Saturn, son of Surya, whose gaze delivers the hard consequences of one's own deeds. Feared and propitiated more than almost any other planetary deity.

King of Hastinapura who married the goddess Ganga on the promise never to question her, and lost her when he did. His later desire for Satyavati extracted the vow that made his son Bhishma.

A ferocious being, part lion and part bird, that Shiva became to subdue the man-lion Narasimha when his fury would not cool. In Shaiva telling the form embodies power beyond even Vishnu's fiercest avatar.

The celestial bow of Vishnu, counterpart to Shiva's Pinaka, carried by his avatars Rama and Krishna.

The youngest of the four brothers, twin of Lakshmana, who served Bharata as Lakshmana served Rama. Slayer of the demon Lavana in the epic's later books.

The thousand-headed world-serpent, also called Ananta, "the endless," upon whose coils Vishnu sleeps between cosmic ages. The earth rests on his hoods; his yawns cause earthquakes.

Born the princess Amba, reborn, after Bhishma wrecked her life, for the sole purpose of destroying him. Raised as a prince and changed in sex, Shikhandi became the shield behind which Arjuna could finally strike Bhishma down, since the grandsire would not raise arms against one born a woman.

The king born with three eyes and four arms, fated to die by Krishna's hand. Krishna promised his mother he would pardon a hundred insults, and at the hundred-and-first, hurled his discus in open court.

The great ascetic god of dissolution and renewal, worshipped as the supreme being in Shaiva traditions. Emerges from the Vedic storm god Rudra into one of Hinduism's most complex figures, destroyer, dancer, yogi, and householder.

Teacher of the asuras who alone holds the secret of reviving the dead, making his demon pupils nearly unbeatable. Counselor to Mahabali against Vishnu's dwarf avatar.

The demon king who conquered the three worlds and, hearing of the goddess's beauty, demanded her hand. Her vow, to marry only one who defeated her in battle, was his invitation to destruction.

Ravana's sister, whose advances Rama and Lakshmana mocked and whose nose Lakshmana cut off. Her demand for vengeance, baited with Sita's beauty, is what set Ravana on his fatal course.

Daughter of the earth, found in a furrow by King Janaka, and wife of Rama. Abducted by Ravana and held in Lanka, she remains steadfast through captivity and ordeal, revered as an avatar of Lakshmi and the ideal of constancy.

Sister of Krishna, wife of Arjuna, carried off with Krishna's own connivance, and mother of the doomed young hero Abhimanyu. The Pandava line survives through her grandson Parikshit.

Krishna's destitute boyhood friend who came to the palace ashamed to ask for anything, bearing only a handful of beaten rice. Krishna ate it with delight and, unasked, made him rich. The parable of friendship across fortune.

The whirling, razor-edged discus of Vishnu and his avatar Krishna, loosed to behead demons and returned to the finger. It is both weapon and emblem of the wheel of time and cosmic order.

The exiled vanara king whom Rama restored to the throne of Kishkindha by slaying his brother Vali, in exchange for the armies of monkeys and bears that found Sita and stormed Lanka.

The sun god who crosses the sky in a chariot drawn by seven horses. Father of Yama, of the river goddess Yamuna, and, secretly, of the tragic hero Karna.

The serpent king whose fatal bite killed King Parikshit, provoking the great snake sacrifice of Janamejaya, the very ritual at which the Mahabharata was first recited.

Queen of the vanaras, wife of Vali and then of Sugriva, celebrated for her political wisdom. Her lament over the dying Vali, and her cool defusing of Lakshmana's wrath, are set pieces of the epic.

The demon whose boon allowed death only at the hands of a son of Shiva, secure while the great ascetic remained unwed. The gods' entire campaign to marry Shiva to Parvati exists to produce his destroyer, Kartikeya.

The three-pronged spear of Shiva, its points named for the three gunas and the three times, past, present, and future. With it the great god destroys ignorance and the worlds at the ending of an age.

The snow-white, seven-headed horse produced at the churning of the ocean, the archetype and king of horses. Claimed by Indra, his color became the stake in the wager that enslaved the serpent-mothers in the Mahabharata.

Lakshmana's wife, left behind for fourteen years. In popular tradition she slept her husband's share of sleep as well as her own, so that he could stand guard unsleeping, the epic's quietest sacrifice.

The radiant Vedic goddess of dawn who throws open the doors of darkness each morning. Some of the Rig Veda's most beautiful hymns are addressed to her, though later tradition nearly forgets her.

The changeless supreme abode of Vishnu, where he reclines on the serpent Shesha upon the ocean of milk with the goddess Lakshmi. The final rest sought by his devotees, beyond the wheel of rebirth.

The indestructible thunderbolt-mace of Indra, forged from the bones of the sage Dadhichi, with which the storm-king split the dragon Vritra and freed the waters. Its name means both "thunderbolt" and "diamond".

Sugriva's mighty elder brother, who took half the strength of any foe who faced him. Rama shot him from concealment, an act the dying Vali protests, and the text itself debates, in one of the epic's sharpest moral passages.

The first poet, whose grief at seeing a hunter kill a crane bird burst out as the first shloka verse. A reformed highway robber in popular tradition, he composed the Ramayana and sheltered the exiled Sita in his hermitage.

The dwarf avatar who asked the demon king Mahabali for three paces of land, then grew to cosmic size and covered heaven and earth in two strides, claiming the king's own head for the third.

The boar avatar who dove into the cosmic waters to lift the drowned earth on his tusks, slaying the demon Hiranyaksha who had sunk her.

Guardian of rita, the cosmic order, who sees every deed and binds oath-breakers in his noose. One of the mightiest Vedic gods, later reduced to lordship of the ocean.

Chief of the royal sages and preceptor of the solar dynasty, owner of the wish-granting cow Kamadhenu. His long feud with Vishvamitra is the classic parable of spiritual power against worldly power.

Krishna's father, who carried the newborn across the flooding Yamuna in a basket on his head at midnight, prison doors opening before him, the serpent Shesha shielding the child from the rain.

King of the nagas, who served as the churning-rope wound around Mount Mandara at the churning of the ocean, and whom Shiva wears coiled about his neck.

God of the wind and of prana, the breath of life. Father of two of mythology's strongest figures: the vanara Hanuman and the Pandava Bhima.

A spirit that hangs in cremation grounds and animates the dead, best known from the riddling tales it tells a king in the Vetala cycle.

Ravana's youngest brother, who counseled returning Sita, was kicked from the court, and defected to Rama, who crowned him king of Lanka after the war. Tradition counts him among the immortals; his name remains a byword, honored or bitter, for leaving one's own for dharma.

Half-brother of the kings, born to a serving maid, and an incarnation of Dharma himself. The one voice in the Kaurava court that consistently spoke truth, and was consistently ignored.

One of the principal deities of Hinduism, the preserver who descends to earth as avatars whenever cosmic order (dharma) is threatened. A minor solar figure in the Vedas who becomes supreme in Vaishnava Puranic tradition.

The warrior-king who, humiliated by the sage Vasishtha's spiritual power, undertook millennia of austerities to remake himself as a brahmarishi. Teacher of the young Rama and seer of the Gayatri mantra.

The divine architect who builds the cities and weapons of the gods, golden Lanka, Indra's palace, and the discus of Vishnu forged from the shaved radiance of the sun.

The forest and pasture-land on the Yamuna where the young Krishna herded cattle, subdued the serpent Kaliya, and danced with the gopis. The heartland of Krishna devotion and the play of divine love.

The cosmic serpent-demon who coiled around the mountains and held back all the waters of the world, until Indra split him open with the thunderbolt, the Rig Veda's central act of creation-by-combat.

The island-born sage who divided the one Veda into four, fathered the Kuru princes, composed the Mahabharata, and appears within it as a character, watching his own descendants destroy each other.

Ambivalent nature-spirits in the retinue of Kubera, guarding hidden wealth in the earth and wilderness, benevolent or dangerous by turns.

The first mortal to die, who thereby became lord of the dead and judge of souls, keeping accounts of every deed. Also called Dharma, righteousness itself, and in that aspect, father of Yudhishthira.

The cowherd woman who raised Krishna in Gokul, bound the butter-thief to a mortar with rope and love, and once, looking into her child's yawning mouth, saw the whole universe inside.

Eldest Pandava, son of the god Dharma, so devoted to truth that his chariot rode above the ground, until one equivocal half-lie brought it down. His dice-game weakness cost his family everything; his righteousness won it back.