Murugan
முருகன் स्कन्द
Also Skanda, Kartikeya, Subrahmanya, Shanmukha, Velan, Kumara, Arumugam.
SaivaVillage and folk
Who this is
Murugan is the god the Tamil country calls its own, and the one Sangam poetry names before any other: the red god of the hills, of youth and of war, whose name means beauty and tenderness together. He is Shanmukha, the six faced, born of six sparks from the eye of Siva carried by Agni and the Ganga and nursed by the six Krittika stars, which is why Karthigai is his day and why the north calls him Kartikeya, the son of the Krittikas. He killed Surapadma at Tiruchendur, and the demon, cut in two, became his peacock and his cock. In Tamil Nadu he is worshipped in six houses, the Arupadai Veedu, and a family will say which of the six is theirs.
How to recognise them
A young man, often with six faces and twelve arms, holding the vel, the spear his mother gave him, and riding a peacock with a cock on his banner. At Palani he is Dandayudhapani, stripped of everything, with a staff and a loincloth and the head shaved. At Tiruchendur he stands by the sea; at Swamimalai he is the teacher and Siva the pupil.
Family and companions
Son of Siva and Parvati, brother of Ganesha. Two wives: Devasena, the daughter of Indra, married at Tiruttani, and Valli, the hill girl of the Veddas, won at Vallimalai; a Tamil shrine usually has him between the two, and the pairing of the arranged marriage and the love marriage is told as deliberate.
How they are worshipped
Sashti, Friday, Tuesday; Krittika each month.
The vel is worshipped as him, with or without an image. The kavadi, a decorated arch carried on the shoulders, is the vow offered at Thai Poosam, and the milk pot, the paal kudam, with it. Vows are made for a child, for a cure and for an examination, and worked off by walking to Palani or by piercing. Friday and Tuesday are his days, and the sixth tithi, Sashti, is his.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
Born of six sparks
The gods could not defeat Surapadma and needed a son of Siva to lead them. Siva, in tapas since the death of Sati, opened his third eye and six sparks flew from it, too hot for anybody to carry. Agni bore them, and could not; the Ganga took them and could not; they were set down in a bed of reeds, the Saravana poigai, where the six Krittikas nursed them as six children. Parvati gathered the six into one body with six faces, and that is Shanmukha. The Tamil name of the pond, Saravana, is in the mantra Om Saravanabhava, which is simply his birth said as a name.
The mango and the six hills
Narada brought a mango that would give wisdom and it could not be divided, so Siva set the race round the world. Ganesha circled his parents and took it. Murugan, who had actually gone round, left in anger, shaved his head, put off his ornaments and went to stand on the hill at Palani as Dandayudhapani, the one with the staff. His parents came to persuade him, and Siva said pazham nee, you are the fruit, which is where the hill's name is said to come from. He stayed.
Valli and the elephant
Valli was a hill girl of the Vedda people, raised in a millet field. Murugan came to her as an old man begging food, and when she refused him he called his brother Ganesha, who came as a wild elephant; she ran to the old man in fright and promised anything, and he became himself. The Vedda elders pursued them and were killed, and Murugan restored them at her asking. Tamil tradition sets this love marriage beside the arranged marriage to Devasena deliberately, and a Murugan shrine stands him between the two.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Tamil Nadu
- The Arupadai Veedu, the six war houses, are the circuit: Palani, Tiruchendur, Swamimalai, Thiruthani, Pazhamudircholai and Thiruparankundram, and a family keeps one of them as its own.
- Kerala
- Kept as Subrahmanya, with Haripad and Payyanur the chief shrines, and the Skanda Sashti vratam observed on fruit and water.
- Karnataka
- Kukke Subrahmanya is the great shrine, where he is worshipped as the serpent as much as the spear, and the sarpa dosha remedies are done there.
- Andhra and Telangana
- Mopidevi and the Subrahmanya temples keep Krittika each month, and the Telugu Subrahmanya Shashti falls in Margashira.
- North India
- Known as Kartikeya and rather little worshipped: the north reads him as the celibate general and gives the household devotion to Ganesha instead, and some Bengali and north Indian households hold that women do not enter his shrine.
Their days
Every one of these has a page of its own
Where to see them
From the temple directory
- Palani Dhandayuthapani Swamy Temple Palani, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu
- Thiruchendur Subramanya Swamy Temple Thiruchendur, Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu
- Swamimalai Swaminatha Swamy Temple Swamimalai, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu
- Thiruthani Subramanya Swamy Temple Tiruttani, Tiruvallur, Tamil Nadu
- Pazhamudircholai Murugan Temple Alagar Koil, Madurai, Tamil Nadu
- Sri Subramaniar Swamy Temple, Batu Caves Batu Caves, Kuala Lumpur, Selangor
- Kataragama Kanda Swamy Devalaya Kataragama, Monaragala, Uva Province
What is said
From the mantra library
In the almanac
Their nakshatras