One of the prominent rivers of South India, in the Coorg region, is the Kaveri. She is worshipped as a goddess and there is a shrine at a spot that is marked as the birth place of Kaveri and known locally as Talakaveri.

According to one legend, the river is the goddess Vishnumaya, she was asked by Vishnu to become the sage Agastya’s wife and accompany him during his lifetime on earth. She was also to carry the god’s blessing to earth. Vishnumaya was born as Lopamudra and married Agastya. There came a time when the south of the country was being ravaged by drought and Agastya decided to travel there to alleviate the pain of the people. His wife took the form of her liquid self and slipped into his brass water pot. The sage carried her with him and one day as he rested on a hill, the pot was overturned by a crow or the wind or by Ganesha and Vishnumaya as Lopamudra flowed down the land and brought it back to life as the river Kaveri.

Hanuman and the mind immediately conjures up an image of him carrying the Sanjeevani mountain or kneeling at the feet of Lord Rama and Sita. Hanuman is the most favourite god in the Hindu pantheon in the recent times. He belongs to the tribe called Kimpurushas who are mystical beings that are half animal and half human. Did you know that Hanuman fought his first battle when he was still in his womb?

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.

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.

The story of Swaminathan and Swami Malai from the Tamil Kanda Puranam challenges one of the accepted relationship hierarchies of Hindu mythology, albeit in a manner that is typical to the region. Usually the father-son relationship is one of obedience – be it Rama and Dasarath, Yayati and Puru and Bheeshman and Shantanu – in Hindu Indian mythology. This story however has a twist.

Swami Malai is a small hillock near Kumbakonam, a small town in Tamil Nadu. The temple at Swami Malai is one of the six important temples associated with the cult of Murugan. This story forms the sthala purana of the temple.

Many aeons ago, during the twilight that intervened between the Dwapara and Kāli Yugas, all men and women including barbarians and other workers of sin obtained entrance to heaven by visiting the celebrated shrine of Someswara (Somnath in Gujarat). Sacrifices, ascetic practices, charitable gifts, and all the other prescribed ordinances ceased and men thronged only to the temple of Siva. The old and young, those skilled in the Vedas and those ignorant of them, ascended to heaven, until at length it became crowded to excess.

Indra and other Gods, scared and afflicted as they were overcome by men and were nearly expelled from heaven invoked Siva. “O Sankara! By your favour now heaven is crowded with men and we are almost expelled from it. These mortals wander wherever and however they please each exclaiming himself/herself as “am the greatest, am the greatest”. Yama, the lord of Dharma and keeper of their good and evil deeds looks astonished. The seven hells were intended for these mortal wanderers of heaven but by your grace, having visited your shrine their all sins remitted and they attained most excellent life!”

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.

According to this Samhita, Hanuman was the disciple of Surya, the Sun God. Surya was supposed to be proficient in nine different powers and had already taught Hanuman, five of them. However, there was a problem when it came to the other four. The rest of the four were meant for married people . This posed a problem for the eager disciple and the master too. It is said that the Gods were also worried as the nine divine powers were necessary for Hanuman as he would need them to assist Lord Vishnu’s avatar as Rama.

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.

Soon it was time for Suravanti to wed, but that is when all the trouble started. She refused to get married. So, the king, her father, took her to the forest where he built a 7-storeyed tower and left her there. In the forest, one day Suravanti found her way to a cowpen that was extremely dirty. She swept it clean and continued to do so for a few days in a row, until the cow who lived there decided to find out who was behind the good deed.

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.

In Indian mythology we find a similar concept first mentioned in Mahabharata, in the context of fifth adventure of the Horse sacrifice or Ashvamedha. It is said that the horse entered a country inhabited only by women ruled by a queen Paramita.

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.