Itihasa — The Epics

The seventh avatar of Vishnu, Prince of Ayodhya, and the Ramayana's central figure — held across the tradition as maryada purushottama, the ideal man who never wavers from dharma regardless of personal cost.

Rama's wife, held as an avatar of Lakshmi, and the Ramayana's central figure of steadfastness through exile, abduction, and a trial the epic never lets her escape entirely.

Rama's younger brother, who left his own bride and the comforts of Ayodhya to accompany Rama and Sita into fourteen years of forest exile.

The vanara devotee whose leap to Lanka, discovery of Sita, and burning of Ravana's city make him one of the Ramayana's most beloved figures — already met at his own shrine in this site's Tirtha chapter.

The ten-headed demon king of Lanka whose abduction of Sita sets the Ramayana's war in motion — a formidable scholar and devotee of Shiva as much as the epic's antagonist.

Rama's younger brother, who refused the throne given to him and ruled Ayodhya as regent in Rama's name for the full fourteen years of his exile.

King of Ayodhya and Rama's father, whose promise to his wife Kaikeyi sets the Ramayana's central exile in motion, and whose grief at losing Rama tradition holds took his life.

Dasharatha's third wife and Bharata's mother, whose two boons, called in on her maid Manthara's urging, sent Rama into exile and set the Ramayana's plot in motion.

The eighth avatar of Vishnu, and the Mahabharata's guiding presence — charioteer, counselor, and, in the Bhagavad Gita, the voice of the epic's central teaching on duty.

The third of the five Pandava brothers, and the Mahabharata's central warrior — the disciple to whom Krishna delivers the Bhagavad Gita's teaching at Kurukshetra's edge.

The Kuru dynasty's grand patriarch, bound by a vow of lifelong celibacy, who fought for the Kauravas out of duty despite loving the Pandavas as his own grandsons.

Kunti's firstborn son, given away at birth and raised by a charioteer, whose loyalty to Duryodhana against his own unknown brothers makes him one of the Mahabharata's most tragic figures.

Wife to all five Pandava brothers, born from a sacrificial fire, and the central figure whose public humiliation in the Kaurava court becomes the moral turning point that makes war unavoidable.

The eldest Pandava, son of the god Dharma himself, whose devotion to truth and duty is tested as severely as it is upheld across the Mahabharata.

The eldest Kaurava, whose refusal to grant the Pandavas even five villages makes him the Mahabharata's chief antagonist and the war's proximate cause.

The martial teacher (guru) to both the Pandavas and the Kauravas, whose own sense of duty as a warrior ultimately outweighs his affection for his most gifted student.