Revised analysis on google "search" trends for top religious texts in India

Earlier thread was a tad flawed.

Texts considered :

Bhagavad Gita
Quran
Mahabharata
Ramayana
Bible

Period past 12 months

Highlight - Ramayana the top search in much of North India
Bible in the South

Now what are the top three texts in each state? Let's look at some major states

UP and Bihar : Ramayana, Mahabharata, Quran
AP : Bible, Ramayana, Mahabharata
TN : Bible, Mahabharata, Quran
Karnataka : Bible, Mahabharata, Ramayana
Gujarat : Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita

Kerala : Bible, Quran, Ramayana
Maharashtra and Punjab: Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bible
Delhi : Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bible
Haryana : Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita
West Bengal : Ramayana, Mahabharata, Quran

Next we can do a standalone examination of texts where we assess their popularity in relation to the overall search traffic

Ramayana:

The top states are MP, Bihar, UP, Rajasthan and Odisha

The intensity of color below indicates the degree of popularity of the search term

Mahabharata is very similar to Ramayana with the same states topping the list

Now let's try Bhagavad Gita

The top 5 states are -

Odisha
Gujarat
Dadra and Nagar Haveli
Uttarakhand
Telengana

Here are the top 5 states for "Vedas"

Andaman and Nicobar
Uttarakhand
Nagaland
Arunachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh

The top 5 states for Bhagavata Purana

MP is way ahead of any other state

MP
Uttar Pradesh
Rajasthan
Bihar
Odisha

Top 5 states for Advaita Vedanta

Uttarakhand
Andhra Pradesh
Telengana
Karnataka
Kerala

Interest seems strong in the South

Top 5 states for Shiva-related searches

Bihar
Rajasthan
Madhya Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh

A comparison of Shiva, Krishna, Rama, Durga across states.

Interestingly Krishna is the top search among these four deities in most states.

Shiva is the top search in TN, and AP.
Durga in Jharkhand!

Now let's look at the popularity of some niche texts -

Vishnu Sahasranama (part of Mahabharata)
Devi Mahatmya
Hanuman Chalisa

Vishnu Sahasranama -

The top 5 states are

Karnataka
Andhra Pradesh
Telengana
Tamil Nadu
Puducherry

Predominantly in the South

Here's Devi Mahatmya

Dadra and Nagar Haveli
Himachal Pradesh
Uttarakhand
Jharkhand
Chhattisgarh

The top 5 states for Hanuman Chalisa

Interestingly UP is not at the top

Rajasthan
Madhya Pradesh
Bihar
Uttar Pradesh
Gujarat

This is a very curious list - the top 5 states for "Manu Smriti"

We don't see UP and Bihar interestingly

Nagaland
Uttarakhand
Chhattisgarh
Jharkhand
Delhi

The top 5 states for "Chanakya" is just as intriguing

Andaman and Nicobar
Arunachal Pradesh
Odisha
Jharkhand
Bihar

Top 5 states for Yajurveda. Not surprisingly TN tops it here.

Tamil Nadu
Karnataka
Himachal pradesh
Andhra Pradesh
Uttarakhand

Rig Veda in contrast has a very different list

Sikkim
Arunachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh
Uttarakhand
Jharkhand

Top 5 states for Patanjali Yoga Sutras

Uttarakhand
Goa
Karnataka
Chhattisgarh
Kerala

Clearly for most Hindu searches, level of interest is much higher in MP and Rajasthan, and also Uttarakhand

For more niche texts, we see greater interest in the Southern parts of the country (e.g. Vishnu Sahasranama, Yajurveda)

But Bible remains the most popular text down south

Post-script : Thanks to @Pvnkmrksk for correcting earlier threads on this where the tool was not used appropriately by me

Post-script 2 : Many have expressed surprise at the top rank of Bible down South.

But the degree of lead Bible has over other texts varies across states -

Karnataka - the lead is narrow

In TN, Bible related searches are more than Mahabharata, Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita put together!!

Here's how it looks in Kerala - Bible + Quran is 3 times the searches for Mahabharata, Ramayana and Gita

In Andhra, situation is similar to what it is in TN

One caveat is

Southern Hinduism is more sampradAya-focused. So it's unfair to judge the scene there using generic strings like "Mahabharata", "Ramayana"

So here's a different pie for TN where I benchmark Bible & Quran against Kambar, Alwars,Nayanars!

Still does not look good

Or let's take the state of Karnataka -

Here's a comparison of the # searches for Jesus and Mohammad with three great Hindu legends from Karnataka

Basavanna
Purandara dasa
Madhvacharya

A similar result in UP, where Jesus and Mohammad searches are way more popular. than searches for Tulsidas, Ramanand and Karpatri

To conclude - here's a look at the nationwide map for five search items -

Jesus, Mohammad, Shiva, Krishna, Durga

Krishna still dominates. But Jesus is the top item in AP!

Interestingly Krishna beats both Jesus and Mohammad in Kerala!! Yes, Kerala!