Explore the pantheons

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.

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.

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.

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.