Category: Cosmic Tales
Narrative, editorial astrology — stories that illuminate the sky.
The Wedding of the Mountain and the Destroyer
After Sati — Shiva’s first wife, who had immolated herself in her father’s sacrificial fire after her husband was insulted — Shiva had retreated into grief so vast that it looked indistinguishable…
The Dance That Holds the Universe: Shiva Nataraja
There is a story told in the deep Tamil country about a forest called Tillai, which stood where the city of Chidambaram now rises. It was a forest of sacred trees, and in that forest lived ten…
Neither Day Nor Night: Narasimha and Prahlada
Hiranyakashipu had a list. It was not a list written on palm leaf or carved in stone. It was a list that lived in his mind, assembled over the years of his meditation and austerity, refined with the…
The Goddess Who Gave the World Its Voice
In the beginning, after Brahma had assembled the raw materials of creation and set the worlds spinning on their various axes, he discovered a problem. Everything was present. The mountains stood. The…
The Hill on a Fingertip: Krishna and Govardhan
The people of Vrindavan had done this for as long as anyone could remember. Every year, as the harvest season ended and the rains began to ease, they gathered their finest foods and garlands and…
The Mountain of Herbs: Hanuman’s Greatest Journey
The night before the final battle with Ravana, something went terribly wrong. Indrajit — Meghnad, the son of Ravana, who had earned his name by defeating Indra himself — had unleashed the Brahmastra,…
When Lakshmi Rose from the Sea
The ocean had been giving up its gifts slowly, one by one, each arising from the foam as though the waters wanted to savour the ceremony of disclosure. There had been the cow of abundance, the horse…
Nine Nights: The Nine Forms of the Mother
In the oldest stories, time is not measured in years or centuries but in the recurring cycles of darkness and light, creation and dissolution, the demons who rise and the divine force that rises to…
How Ganesha Came to Wear the Elephant’s Head
Parvati was alone on Kailasa. This was not unusual — Shiva wandered. He walked among the cremation grounds at midnight, sat unmoving for epochs in the heart of the Himalayas, roamed with his ganas…
The Blue-Throated One: Why Shiva Drank the Poison
Before the gods possessed immortality, before the celestial physician Dhanvantari rose from the waters bearing his golden pot of amrita, before Lakshmi bloomed upon her lotus and the divine white…