Explore the pantheons

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

The great city that took Athena as its patron after her gift of the olive tree bested Poseidon's spring, home of the hero Theseus.

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.

The far eastern kingdom on the Black Sea where the Golden Fleece hung guarded, the destination of the Argonauts and home of Medea.

The island kingdom of King Minos, seat of the palace of Knossos, the Labyrinth, and the Minotaur.

The sanctuary of Apollo on the slopes of Parnassus, seat of the Pythia whose prophecies shaped the fate of heroes and cities. Marked by the omphalos, the stone the Greeks called the navel of the world.

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

The blessed fields at the world's edge where the favored dead and heroes enjoy an eternal, effortless summer.

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

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

The rugged western island that is the home and kingdom of Odysseus, the goal of his ten-year wandering and the stage for his return in disguise to reclaim his wife and hall.

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.

The inescapable maze built beneath the palace of Knossos by the craftsman Daedalus to hold the Minotaur, from which even its maker barely escaped, on wings, with his son Icarus.

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.

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.

The highest mountain in Greece and the cloud-wrapped court of the Olympian gods, where Zeus presides over the divine assembly above the reach of wind and weather.

The mountain from which the Titans waged the ten-year Titanomachy against the Olympians on Mount Olympus.

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

The deep pit below even Hades, as far beneath earth as heaven is above it, where the defeated Titans and the worst sinners are imprisoned.

The shadowed kingdom beneath the earth ruled by Hades, across the river Styx, where the souls of the dead endure. Few living heroes, Odysseus and Heracles among them, ever entered and returned.

The great walled city of the Troad, ruled by King Priam and defended by Hector, besieged ten years by the Greeks over Helen and at last taken by the ruse of the wooden horse.

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 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.