Itihasa & Purana
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and the gods and goddesses who fill the Puranas — traditional accounts held sacred by Hindus, kept apart from the historical record of the Chronicle.
Itihasa — the great epics
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are itihasa, "thus it was" — traditional narrative sacred to Hindus, transmitted and dated quite differently from the archaeological record. They live apart from the Bharat Chronicle timeline because their chronology isn't settled the way the Indus Valley's stratigraphy is.
Ramayana — the House of Ikshvaku
Exiled to the forest for fourteen years by a promise Dasharatha owed Kaikeyi, Rama loses Sita to Ravana, recovers her with an army of vanaras led by Hanuman, and returns to be crowned in Ayodhya — the return itself still marked every year as Diwali.
Mahabharata — the House of Kuru
A rigged dice game strips the Pandavas of their kingdom and sends them into thirteen years' exile; Duryodhana's refusal to return so much as "land enough for a needle's point" on their return leaves war the only recourse.
Krishna kills his tyrant uncle Kansa, later relocates the Yadavas to Dwarka after Jarasandha's sieges, and elopes with Rukmini before her forced wedding to a rival king. As Arjuna's charioteer at Kurukshetra, his battlefield counsel is recorded as the Bhagavad Gita.
The Battle of Kurukshetra
- Cause
- Succession dispute between cousins — Duryodhana's refusal to restore the Pandavas' kingdom after their exile.
- Location
- The plain of Kurukshetra, in present-day Haryana.
- Duration
- Eighteen days, fought in successive named formations (vyuha) under a rotating cast of Kaurava commanders.
- Turning point
- Arjuna's crisis of conscience before the battle, resolved by Krishna's counsel — recorded as the Bhagavad Gita.
- Outcome
- The Pandavas prevail; Duryodhana and nearly the entire Kaurava line are killed. Yudhishthira is crowned king of Hastinapura.
- Aftermath
- Traditionally reckoned as the close of Dvapara Yuga and the start of Kali Yuga, the present age.
Cast of characters
The two trees above show only the main lines. Here are the wider casts — sages, allies, rivals and family — grouped by where they belong in the story. Search by name or role.
Itihasa timeline
Each epic's story in the order it is told, book by book. Neither has calendar dates: tradition places the Ramayana in the Treta Yuga and the Mahabharata at the close of the Dvapara Yuga, and the war at Kurukshetra is the hinge into the present age.
The gods and their links
Who is whose parent, spouse, avatar or vehicle. Start from any god: click a node to see their family, their vahana (the animal or vehicle they ride) and what they carry. Switch on the epic characters to see which gods they descend from, for example Karna, son of Surya through Kunti, or Bhishma, son of Ganga.
Vahanas and symbols
The vehicle each deity rides, and what they carry. Tap a name to jump to it in the graph.
| Deity | Vahana | Symbols | Consort(s) |
|---|
Purana — the Hindu pantheon
A separate category from the epics above: the Ramayana and Mahabharata are itihasa, narratives about kings and wars fought by (and among) the gods' avatars and descendants. What follows is Puranic cosmology itself — the gods' own lineages, kept here on their own rather than folded into either epic's family tree.
The Trimurti & the Goddess
Brahmaself-born from a lotus that rises from Vishnu's navel
Saraswatigoddess of knowledge, speech and the arts
Dakshaa mind-born son; progenitor-king, father of Sati — whose self-immolation and rebirth as Parvati links this house to Shiva's below
Naradaa mind-born son; wandering sage-messenger between the worlds
Vishnureclines on the serpent Shesha in the cosmic ocean
Lakshmigoddess of fortune; worshipped in South Indian temples such as Tirupati as Sridevi, alongside a second consort, Bhudevi, the earth goddess
Rama7th avatar (Dashavatara) — hero of the Ramayana
Krishna8th avatar — hero of the Mahabharata
Kalki10th avatar — prophesied to end the current age, Kali Yuga
Shivathe ascetic of Mount Kailash
Parvatidaughter of the Himalaya; also Sati reborn
Ganeshaelephant-headed god, remover of obstacles
Kartikeyagod of war, also called Murugan or Skanda
Devasenadaughter of Indra, personifying the army of the godsKali, Durga and Parvati are traditionally understood as forms of one Goddess (Devi / Shakti) rather than separate individuals: Parvati as Shiva's gentle consort, Durga and the fiercer Kali as her warrior aspects, invoked against demons such as Mahishasura. The three gods above are usually read together as one cosmic function — Brahma creates, Vishnu preserves (descending as an avatar whenever dharma is threatened), Shiva destroys to allow renewal. Consort traditions for Ganesha and Kartikeya vary significantly by region and sect; both are shown here rather than picked as the single "correct" version.
Public-domain paintings and prints (Raja Ravi Varma and his press, Calcutta Art Studio, and earlier miniatures); tap an image for its Wikimedia Commons page and credit.
- Tirumala Venkateswara TempleTirupati, Andhra Pradesh
- Guruvayur TempleGuruvayur, Kerala
- Ranganathaswamy TempleSrirangam, Tamil Nadu
- Badrinath TempleBadrinath, Uttarakhand
- Somnath TempleSomnath, Gujarat
- Mallikarjuna Swamy TempleSrisailam, Andhra Pradesh
- Mahakaleshwar TempleUjjain, Madhya Pradesh
- Omkareshwar TempleOmkareshwar, Madhya Pradesh
- Kedarnath TempleKedarnath, Uttarakhand
- Bhimashankar Templenear Pune, Maharashtra
- Kashi VishwanathVaranasi, Uttar Pradesh
- Trimbakeshwar Templenear Nashik, Maharashtra
- Baidyanath TempleDeoghar, Jharkhand some traditions instead place this at Parli, Maharashtra
- Nageshwar Templenear Dwarka, Gujarat some traditions instead place this at Aundha, Maharashtra
- Ramanathaswamy TempleRameswaram, Tamil Nadu
- Grishneshwar Templenear Ellora, Maharashtra
- Kamakhya TempleGuwahati, Assam
- Vaishno DeviKatra, Jammu & Kashmir
- Kalighat Kali TempleKolkata, West Bengal
- Siddhivinayak TempleMumbai, Maharashtra
- Ashtavinayak circuiteight shrines around Pune, Maharashtra
- PalaniPalani
- TiruchendurTiruchendur
- Swamimalainear Kumbakonam
- TiruttaniTiruttani
- Pazhamudircholainear Madurai
- Thiruparankundramnear Madurai
This is a short, well-known list rather than an exhaustive one — regional and community traditions across India name many other major temples for each deity. Each temple name links to its location on Google Maps.