Hindu Myths and Stories

He who owns the stories rules the world (Hopi proverb)

330 Million Stories?Hinduism is noted for its 330 million gods, and there seem to be just as many stories. From Manu’s boat that rode out the Great Flood to the curse that left the great god Indra with a thousand vaginas to Shiva’s destruction of Kama, the god of love, the stories are raucous, bawdy, and often violent – everything that makes myth such a great field to explore.

L-R: Kama on his parrot; Manu and the Seven Sages; the self-decapitation of the goddess Chinnamasta; the Churning of the Ocean

Shiva and GangaShiva and Krishna are featured in more of Hinduism’s sacred stories than any other figures. The story is told that a king named Sagara had 60,000 sons who died in an unfortunate moment, but they were doomed to wander as ghosts. He prayed that Ganga would come downTo cleanse them of their sin. Brahma agreed, but Ganga was not at all happy. As she fell to earth, it was clear she was out for destruction, but Shiva spread out his locks and her power was diffused into the seven sacred rivers.

“The Penance of Arjuna” at Mahibalipuram in southern India depicts the story of Ganga’s descent.

Shiva and Parvati

Talk about divine love stories. She was human, he was a god, and their lovemaking lasted for thousands of years.

Still, all was not paradise in paradise. One day, instead of a sandwich and a nap, they played a game of dice. Shiva lost and lost, until he went for a walk. When he came back, his luck was TOO good. Parvati accused him of cheating, and Shiva stormed out.

That was the opening the demon Adi needed. Believing that Shiva’s power rested in his lingum(penis), he took Parvati’s appearance, and offered Shiva a very physical expression of apology.

Shiva and Ganesh

Ganesh is the child of Parvati’s loneliness – or, depending on the telling, her yearning for a little alone time. Shiva had a habit of walking in on Parvati when she was bathing, so one day she formed a son from the soaps on her skin, and placed him at the door to stand guard.

Shiva was not pleased when the stranger forbade him entry, and he took off the boy’s head. Faced then with the fury of Parvati, he found the boy a replacement head from an elephant.

Shiva and Kali

Raktabija was an asura (think “superbeing”) who somehow got the gods to give him invincibility from any god. Then he went on a power blitz. The gods were terrified. As they sat in a circle desperately trying to come up with a plan, all their gazes met in the middle and Kali, the goddess of destruction, was born. Raktabija’s boon did not include “death by goddess.”

She was effective, almost too effective. With the destruction of the world immanent, the gods begged Shiva to do something.

Vishnu’s Avatars

Vishnu is one of the three primary deities of Hinduism (with Shiva, Brahma and Devi – and yes, that makes four). Vishnu has entered into the world nine times –and it certainly LOOKS like a developing process. First, he came as a fish, then as a turtle, then a boar, then as half-lion half human, and when he finally came as human, it was as a dwarf named Vamana.

King Mahabali had claimed control of the world, usurping the god Indra. Vamana came to ask for just the land he could reach in three steps. Little did Mahabali know that Vamana’s three steps would cost him everything.

Krishna and the Gopis

Krishna, Vishnu’s eighth avatar, plays the starring role in the Mahabharata. There, Krishna is cosmic and serious. Five or six centuries later the Bhagavata Purana told some very different stories, including tales of his mischief as a child and (in the most famous of its stories) his encounter with the bathing milkmaids (gopis) of the village. He snuck up, grabbed their clothes, and climbed a tree, from which he called to the milkmaids to come get their clothes.