A sage in ancient India. He was the father of Marisha (Varkshi), the wife of Prachetas.

It is believed that Marisha was born from the trees. Kandu built a hermitage on the banks of the Gomati and meditated there. To distract him, Indra sent an apsara named Pramlocha. The sage ended up marrying her and lived with her for a hundred years in the foothills of the Mandara mountains. After that Pramlocha sought permission from him to go back to devaloka. He asked her to wait for a while and they lived together for a hundred more years. She again asked for permission and was asked to wait, which turned out to be another hundred years. This went on for many centuries and the sage continued to be passionately in love with the apsara.

Once the sage got ready to leave his hermitage when Pramlocha asked him where he was off to. The sage told her that he was going for his evening prayers. Pramlocha commented that he had been ignoring it for several years now. Kandu replied that she had arrived at the hermitage only in the morning to which Pramlocha said that it had been many centuries since that morning. The sage asked her how long he had been with her and she replied that it had been 907 years 6 months and 3 days.

The sage was very angry and began scolding her. She started sweating profusely in fear and the sage asked her to leave. As she flew up towards devaloka, she wiped her sweat using some tree leaves and the sage’s seed which was already in her fell on them too. With the help of Vayu, the trees delivered that child who came to be known as Marisha as per Vishnupurana Ansh 1 Chapter 15.

There is a story in the Ramayana on how Hanuman and other vanaras who had set out in search of Sita ended in a desert which was created by Kandu’s curse. The place used to be a forest earlier and Kandu’s sixteen year old son had died there. The sage cursed the forest and made it a desert as per Ramayana Kishkindakanda Chapter 48.

When Rama became king, he was visited by sages from across the land. from the south came Dattatreya, Namuchi, Pramuchi, Valmiki, Soma, Kandu and Agastya as per Uttararamayana.