Epics & Puranas, Tulunadu Style
Familiar Indian myths with a local twist, such as King Bali and Parashurama.
Kadri Manjunatha: The Hill of Many Faiths
On a laterite hill in Mangaluru stands a Shiva temple whose oldest treasure is a Buddhist bronze. Kadri was a monastery, then a seat of the Nath yogis, before it became the temple of Manjunatha, and it still keeps the images of every stage.
Panjurli, the Boar Daiva
An orphaned wild piglet, raised by Parvati, tears up Shiva's garden and is sent down to earth, where the wrecker of crops becomes their guardian.
The Tulu Language and the Tigalari Script
Tulu is one of the oldest branches of the Dravidian family, spoken by about 1.8 million people and listed by UNESCO as vulnerable. For centuries Brahmin scribes wrote Sanskrit and some Tulu in its own script, Tigalari, until printing moved Tulu into the Kannada script.
Nagaradhane: The Serpent in the Sacred Grove
At the edge of many Tuluva family lands stands a small, dark grove where stone cobras rest under trees no one may cut. This is the nagabana, home of the family's serpent deity, and the heart of one of Tulunadu's oldest living traditions.
Rakteshwari, the Earth-Born Maiden
An ancient spirit of the fields with no birth story, who was given a sword, a shield and a fearsome new name, and who once left a neglected shrine and later asked to come home.
Written Tulu Literature: The Palm-Leaf Manuscripts
Tulu is known for its sung epics, but a handful of old books were written down too, on palm leaf, in the Tigalari script. Sources disagree, by centuries, on when they were written.
The Koti-Chennaya Paddana: A Fourteen-Hour Epic
Koti and Chennaya is one of only two Tulu oral epics long enough to count as a 'long epic'. It takes about fourteen hours to sing in full, yet it is sung in shrines, fields, wedding rooms and a comic play, in pieces.
Tulu Nataka: The Stage-Play Tradition
Alongside Yakshagana and the sung epics, the coast has scripted, directed plays in Tulu. They are thinly documented, but a few names stand out: a tailor who founded a troupe in 1958, a national drama school staging Siri, and a troupe still at work today.
Udupi Sri Krishna Matha: Eight Monasteries, One Child God
A small image of the child Krishna, said to have crossed the sea hidden in a lump of clay, is worshipped at Udupi in a temple no single owner runs. Eight monasteries founded by the philosopher Madhvacharya take turns to look after it, handing it on every two years in the Paryaya.
The Siri Paddana: Tulunadu's Longest Oral Epic
The Siri epic runs to more than 16,000 verses, only five lines fewer than the Iliad. For most of its life nobody had heard it sung from start to finish, until one farmer-singer was recorded doing exactly that.
Mangaladevi and Sharavu: Two Temples, One King
Mangaluru takes its name from Mangaladevi, a goddess whose shrine was buried and found again, while a few kilometres away Sharavu was founded by a king who shot a cow by mistake. Their legends share a king, and both temples are still looked after by hereditary families.
Siri, the Princess Who Walked Away
A princess born from a blessing, betrayed by her husband and cheated of her father's land, who walked out of her world and became a goddess, and whose festivals are still carried by women.
Jumadi, Neither Man nor Woman
Shiva and Parvati fused into a single body to destroy a demon no man or woman could kill, and became Jumadi, the royal daiva who came to a sixteen-year-old's aid at a single call.
Chennemane and the Games of Tulunadu
When the monsoon kept people indoors, Tulunadu played Chennemane: a wooden board, a handful of seeds and a game with a king, a minister and a tenant. It is the best recorded of the many games the coast once played.
Guliga, the Hunger That Became a Guardian
Born from a stone in Shiva's ash with a hunger that tried to swallow the sun, Guliga was calmed only by Vishnu's little finger, and became the fierce guardian of Tulunadu's shrines and boundaries.
Pilichamundi, the Tiger Goddess
A tiger cub hatched from an egg promised to Shiva and Parvati kills the cows of Kailasa and is sent down to earth, where the hunter of cattle becomes their guardian.
Kollur Mookambika: The Goddess and the Mute Demon
At the foot of the Kodachadri hills stands the temple of a goddess named for a demon's silence. Her image is a self-born linga with a golden line, with a four-armed goddess behind it, and her pilgrims come from Kerala as much as from Karnataka.
Maisandaya, Guardian of the Herd
The bull-headed daiva of Tulunadu's farms, honoured for the beasts that pull the plough. It has no single origin story, only words of its own, a scholar's map of the wild, and an old argument about a buffalo king.
Ullaya and the Ullakulu, the King Daivas
Two royal brothers, and in some tellings their sister Ullalthi, who come to Tulunadu by a ship of maya, from Kashi, or down the Ghats from a golden palace. Every year at Mandekolu, one of them still steps in to stop a fight.
Kateel Durgaparameshwari: The Goddess Who Became a Bee
On an islet in the Nandini river stands a temple whose goddess is said to have killed a demon in the form of a swarm of bees. Its legend is told in the temple's own history and played on stage by the temple's own Yakshagana troupe. The temple also runs schools and a college.
Babbarya, the Daiva of the Sea
The son of a Beary sea-merchant and a Jain mother, born by a miracle, sails a ship cut from a thousand-year-old tree and vanishes off Kaup. He stays on as Babbarya, guardian of the fishermen, and the people of the coast still argue about who he really was.
Polali Rajarajeshwari: The Clay Goddess and the Football Match
A king who lost his kingdom and a merchant who lost his family are said to have moulded a goddess out of river clay at Polali. Her temple on the Phalguni river is known for the clay image and for Polali Chendu, a football match played as part of her festival.
Tudar Parba: Calling King Bali Home
In much of India, Deepavali is about gods defeating demons. In the paddy fields of Tulunadu, it is Tudar Parba, the night the good king Bali comes home, and farming families light a torch at the edge of the field to call him.
Narahari Parvata: Where Krishna and Arjuna Atoned
On a hill near Melkar, on the road from Mangaluru to Bengaluru, a Shiva temple stands over four rock ponds shaped like Vishnu's emblems. The story is that Krishna and Arjuna came here to make amends after the war at Kurukshetra.
Karinja: The Hill of Bhima, Arjuna and the Monkeys
A Shiva temple on a rocky hill near Bantwal has ponds said to be left by Bhima, an arrow mark said to be Arjuna's, and a troop of monkeys that come every afternoon for the temple's rice, led by a chief called Karinja Dadda.
Bhutala Pandya: The Nephew Who Was Spared
In the story that explains aliyasantana, a sea-demon asks a king for one of his sons, and the king's sister offers her own son instead. The demon spares the boy, and he becomes his uncle's heir. Historians treat the story as legend, and a text from about the 14th century is its only source.