This is a story about Holika, an Asura and how her end was plotted with the help of the gods.
Holika’s death is celebrated as Holi. Her image is burnt to symbolise the end of her existence all over the country even today. In the same way in the southern State of Tamilnadu, they burn an image of Cupid or Kama. It is called the Kaman Pandigai or Kamavilas or Kama dahanam. An image of Kama and his consort Rati is painted and worshipped. The image of Kama is then burnt on the same day and hour as that of Holika.
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There was once a king of Ayodhya called Ambarisa. He was preparing for the grand yagna when Indra stole the sacrificial horse. The king wandered into the forest looking for another victim for the sacrifice when he found himself in the hermitage of a poor Brahmin called Rcika. Rcika had three sons and agreed to give one of them to the king for his sacrifice. But he is reluctant to part with the eldest son and his wife refuses to let the youngest one go, so the middle child Sunahshepa steps up and says that since his parents have not shown any interest in his life, he is available to the king.
Hanuman, in all versions of Ramayan has been depicted as a celibate. However there is one telling which puts him down as a married man. Not quite popularly told today, but according to Parashar Samhita he was married to a woman by the name of Suvarchala, and often referred to as Suvarchala Anjaneya. A temple in Ongole, Andhra Pradesh even has a temple dedicated to this form of Hanuman and this is one among his nine different forms. The author of this Samhita was a sage Parashar. It is important to note that this was not the same sage Parashar who has been designated as the father of Sage Vyasa.
The creator god, the potter named Katya made a clay idol and locked it in a coffer and sent it down to earth. It penetrated several layers and dug itself into the soil where it lay until one day, two workers of the king Dhuri, Sarvan and Narayan stumbled upon it while they were ploughing his field. They brought up the box with great difficulty and the goldsmith, Tatoba, after several attempts managed to break it open. The statue had turned into a little girl and the king and his wife, childless until then, brought her up as their own.
Stories where in the beginning only women lived on earth without companionship of men is found across ancient mythologies. In this women- centric realm, men not only lose their position of power but are relegated to the position of slaves or victims of magic by which they service women in all kinds of jobs. Examples such as Amazonian women in Homer’s Illiad were sought and found somewhere near Lycia. Diodorus mentions that the Amazons travelled from the Libya under Queen Myrina. People living under the rule of women suggest that in ancient cultures, matriarchal systems were the first social order of world. Arab geographers describe a great town in an island in the western ocean, which was free of men. Also similar ideas can be found in ancient Chinese, and Polynesian mythologies.
Parashuram was the son of Jamadagni and Renuka. His story is a part of the epic literature and Parashuram is often cited for his unfailing loyalty to his father. Jamadagni was a Brahmin while Renuka belonged to the Kshatriya, or the warrior clan. Parashuram was a great worshipper of Shiva. He was a master at weaponry and is believed to have been teacher to the epic greats, Guru Dronacharya, Karna and Arjuna.
In the heart of Tamil Nadu, a little distance away from Chennai, flows the Varahanadi also known as Cankaraparani River. It is a perennial in a land of seasonal rivers and carries the mythologies of the region within her waters as it rushes into the sea, south of Pondicherry. This is the river around which the old and famous kingdom of Gingee flourished and where the epic heroine Draupadi came to reside and establish her cult.