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Saileshpat  · CC BY-SA 4.0  · a work of art, not a likeness

Tradition collection 1,718 records

South Asian traditions

Hinduism and its schools, Jainism, Sikhism, and the Vedic material behind them.

  • Extent Indian subcontinent and its diaspora, roughly 1500 BCE to the present.
  • Holds 981 places · 387 gods · 167 figures · 72 texts and stories
See the holy places

Before you count

Hinduism is not one tradition, and a single 'Hinduism' affiliation row on a deity says much less than it appears to.

What else it is missing

Places · 981

Holy places and sites

Temples, tombs, holy cities and sites recorded in this collection, the most widely linked first. A place is not a count of believers.

All 981 places

981 places 980 with a point on the map 110 with a date 1 archaeological site

See them on the atlas

The oldest on record

The earliest recorded starts among its best-known places, by 1000 CE, in date order. Each date is the place’s own — a city’s founding, a building’s — not the start of this tradition there.

  1. 300 CE Tirumala Venkateswara Temple
  2. 325 CE Changu Narayan Temple
  3. 5th century CE Dashavatara Temple, Deogarh
  4. 6th century CE Padmanabhaswamy Temple
  5. c. 7th century CE Kapaleeshwarar Temple
  6. 668 CE Pancha Rathas
  7. 8th century CE Kedarnath Temple
  8. 8th century CE Baitala Deula

Where they gather

Cities and sites with two or more of its places recorded in them — counted from each place’s own location.

Gods · 387

The gods, and the company they keep

The most widely linked across Wikipedia, this collection’s own first. A picture of a god is a work of art, never a likeness.

All 387 gods

More of its best-linked gods

In company

Pantheons, read from the members’ own records — never from a fixed roster.

Navagraha 9 members on record Explore the pantheon

Figures · 167

Who to meet first

The figures its own texts, stories and traditions name — the most widely linked first, this collection’s own before those it shares.

All 167 figures

Not its own picture Madhvacharya — lead image of the English Wikipedia article

More of its best-linked figures

Texts and stories · 72

Stories and texts

What was told, and what was written — dated when it was written.

1 story All 71 texts

Traditions · 62

Many paths, shared histories

The traditions, schools and movements this collection holds — each with its own page.

All 62 traditions

Festivals and practices · 46

Festivals, holy days and practices

Holy days with the day their record gives, then rites and practices. A festival recurs, so it has no date on the historical clock.

All 46 practices

Holy days and festivals · 7, each with the day its record gives

3 more with a recorded day — the full list.

Rites and practices · 36, with no day on record

30 more — the full list.

Festivals, practices and events follow how densely Wikidata records them, not how much a tradition keeps: 77% of the 845 held across the collections are Christian, and this collection holds 47.

Institutions, offices and houses · 53

Institutions, offices and houses

Recorded in this collection, the most widely linked first. An office is a line of holders, not a family. A ruling house’s affiliation is the family’s, not its subjects’ practice.

All 38 institutions All 5 offices

Also here · 1

Also in this collection

Kinds it holds only one or two of, each with its own page.

What this collection holds

Counted, not scored. Each count opens its list.

Every collection

A record can be more than one kind — a monastery is a place and an institution — so these counts add up to more than its 1,718 records. The sections above count the same way, and draw each record once, under the kind its own page is filed under.

Statements
3,193
With references
378
Undated
1,505
Accounts
0
Reviewed here
0
What it is missing, and how it was assembled

What this collection is missing

Written by an editor, not computed. A count of records cannot say any of this, and a collection read without it is a collection read wrongly.

  • Hinduism is not one tradition, and a single 'Hinduism' affiliation row on a deity says much less than it appears to.
  • Regional and household deities vastly outnumber the recorded ones.
  • Puranic genealogies differ between Puranas; where a relationship is drawn without an account, that is what the label says.

Counted across the collections

Festivals, practices and events follow how densely Wikidata records them, not how much a tradition keeps: 77% of the 845 held across the collections are Christian, and this collection holds 47.

What the counts mean

Statements
Relationships and facts recorded on these records.
With references
Statements that cite a source outside Wikimedia.
Undated
Records with no date on any of the three clocks.
Accounts
Named versions of a story, kept apart.
Reviewed here
Read by a person and signed with a date.

How it was assembled

Discovered from Wikidata by class and by religion, ranked by incoming links, then filtered against each item’s own claims. Relationships are imported statements unless a row says otherwise; none of them has been read here.

“Reviewed” means a person read it and signed it with a date — which is why it is zero. Nothing here measures how good the material is.

Records here have an article in 16 languages between them. The interface is English only for now. Published 2026-09-25.

How 49 of these records were placed here through another record

Most records are in South Asian traditions by their own statements. These are here because of another record they are linked to — worked out when the data was built, not stated on the record itself. Each one’s own page says the same.

Cities and sites, through the places recorded in them · 8

  • Varanasi — 2 of the 4 places recorded in it here are in this collection
  • Amritsar — 4 of the 4 places recorded in it here are in this collection
  • Angkor — 2 of the 7 places recorded in it here are in this collection
  • Mathura — 3 of the 3 places recorded in it here are in this collection
  • Ayodhya — 2 of the 4 places recorded in it here are in this collection
  • Puri — 1 of the 1 places recorded in it here are in this collection

and 2 more

Places, through the god they are dedicated to · 4

Figures and stories, through the text they appear in · 28

  • Arjuna — it appears in Mahabharata
  • Bhīma — it appears in Mahabharata
  • Bhīṣma — it appears in Mahabharata
  • Karṇa — it appears in Mahabharata
  • Kuntī — it appears in Mahabharata
  • Pāṇḍu — it appears in Mahabharata

and 22 more

Parts, through the whole they belong to · 2

Practices, through the kind they are · 2

Pantheons, through their own published gods · 5

Biswarup Ganguly · CC BY 3.0

Keep going

Walk South Asian traditions another way.

A family tree as the accounts give it, every mapped place on the atlas, and the dates on the timeline — each on its own clock.

Shiva’s family tree On the atlas The timeline, from Mahatma Gandhi