An episode in Hindu mythology describing the churning of the “ocean of milk,” where the devas, seeking the nectar of immortality, forged an alliance with the asuras, using Mount Mandara as a churning rod and Vasuki, a snake deity, as the churning rope. The myth is described in several texts such as the Bhagavata Purana, the Vishnu Purana and the Mahabharata.
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A genre of ancient and religious texts written in Sanskrit, Tamil and other languages. The texts are encyclopaedic and cover…
A representation of the Hindu deities Shiva and Parvati with their son Skanda, the god of war. This representation emerged…
In Vajrayana Buddhism, one of the forms of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. Simhanada is depicted as sitting in the maharajalila posture…
A form of Tantric Buddhism that developed in India in the medieval period and is currently widely practiced in Tibet,…
A clan of power-seeking figures in the Hindu pantheon. Often mistranslated as "demon," the Sanskrit word asura originally meant "lord"…
The five cosmic acts or duties of the Hindu deity Shiva, as embodied in the anandatandava performed by Nataraja, a…
The lunar deity in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. In Sanskrit, and several South Asian languages, the word is also used…
An episode in Hindu mythology central to the Vaishnava sect, it narrates the tale of how Vishnu came down to…