Murugan

If one god belongs to the Tamil people, it is Murugan முருகன். He is in the oldest Tamil poems, on the hilltops of Tamil Nadu, and in the greatest gathering of Hindus outside India — the Thaipusam crowds that climb the steps of Batu Caves each year. Devotees call him appā, father; sing his songs through the night; carry kavadi for him in fulfilment of vows. He is youthful, fiercely protective and endlessly gracious, and for many Malaysian Hindus he is the first form of God they ever knew.

Names of the beautiful one

The Tamil word murugu means beauty, youth, fragrance and divinity all at once: Murugaṉ is “the beautiful one,” “the young one.” His other names carry his whole story:

• Cēyōṉ சேயோன் — “the red one,” his name in the oldest Tamil grammar; and Vēlaṉ, “he of the spear.”
• Skanda स्कन्द — Kantaṉ in Tamil; often explained as “the one who leapt” (from Shiva’s seed). Kumāra, “the youth.”
• Kārttikeya कार्त्तिकेय — son of the six Kṛttikā maidens who nursed him.
• Ṣaṇmukha षण्मुख — “six-faced”; in Tamil ஆறுமுகம் Āṟumukam.
• Subrahmaṇya — Cuppiramaṇiyaṉ in Tamil, “dear to the Brahmins” or “of the nature of Brahman.” Guha, “the hidden one,” who dwells in the cave of the heart.
• Saravaṇabhava — “born in the reed-pond,” the lake where he first appeared. Daṇḍāyudhapāṇi — “he who holds the staff,” the renunciant of Palani.

The god of the hills

Classical Tamil poetry divides the land into five landscapes (tiṇai), each with its own flowers, people, mood of love — and god. The oldest Tamil grammar, the Tolkāppiyam, assigns them:

The Red One’s world is kuṟiñci, the mountains — named after the kuṟiñci flower that blooms on the hills only once in twelve years. In the Sangam poems, Murugan is the god of that wild, fragrant, dangerous country: of hunters and millet fields, of the frenzied veṟiyāṭṭu dance in which his priest, the Vēlaṉ, was possessed by the god. Kuṟiñci is also the landscape of lovers’ first secret meetings — which is why Murugan’s own great love story, with the hill-girl Valli, belongs there.

The first of the Sangam “Ten Songs” is the Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai of Nakkīrar, “the guide to Murugan” — a poem of 317 lines that directs a seeker to the god’s sacred places, where grace may be found. It opens with the image of the rising sun:

The poem goes on to compare the god’s radiance to that sun. Scholars usually see it as one of the latest Sangam poems; it was later included in the eleventh book of the Shaiva canon (see Tamil Sacred Literature).

Murugan and Skanda: one god, two streams

In northern, Sanskrit India there was another young god: Skanda, the warrior son of Shiva, commander of the gods’ army. Tamil devotion and Sanskrit tradition met in the same deity. Here is how each side tells it:

The merger shows in his two consorts. Deivanai (Tēvayāṉai; Sanskrit Devasenā, “army of the gods”) is the daughter of Indra, given to the god after his victory — a Sanskrit figure. Valli is the daughter of a chief of the hill-tribe Kuṟavar — wholly Tamil. Shaiva Siddhanta reading Devotional teachers often read the three as the powers of the Lord: Valli as icchā-śakti (the power of love and will), Deivanai as kriyā-śakti (the power of action), and the vēl as jñāna-śakti (the power of wisdom). See Shaiva Siddhanta.

The story of Valli

No story is loved more in Tamil homes. It is told in the Kanda Purāṇam and in countless songs, folk dramas and temple traditions, which add their own details. Popular tradition Tap through:

For devotees it is the story of the soul and God: the Lord leaves heaven to seek out a simple, low-born hill-girl, takes any form needed to win her, and makes her his own. Grace comes looking for us — not the other way round.

The vēl and the victory over Sūrapadman

In the Kanda Purāṇam, the demon Sūrapadman and his brothers Siṅkamukaṉ and Tārakaṉ, armed with boons, oppress the three worlds. Murugan is born to defeat them. His mother Pārvatī gives him the vēl, the shining spear, and with his general Vīrabāhu he leads the gods’ army south. The final battle is at Tiruchendur, by the sea. Sūrapadman takes form after form, last of all as a huge mango tree in the ocean. The vēl splits the tree in two; one half becomes the peacock that Murugan rides, and the other the rooster on his banner. Even his enemy is not destroyed but saved, and made his own.

This victory is re-enacted at Kanda Ṣaṣṭhī, six days in the Tamil month of Aippasi (October–November), with fasting and recitation. On the sixth day comes the Sūrasamhāram, the slaying of the demon, staged on the beach at Tiruchendur before vast crowds and in Murugan temples across Malaysia. The next day many temples celebrate his wedding to Deivanai.

His form and symbols

Tap to open. Meanings are traditional devotional readings. Popular tradition

The six abodes

The Āṟupaṭai Vīṭu ஆறுபடை வீடு, the “six battle-camp homes,” are Murugan’s six great shrines in Tamil Nadu. The list grew from the places in Nakkīrar’s poem, though the fifth section of the poem speaks of “every hill where he dances” rather than one temple. Tap a shrine:

Popular tradition Palani’s best-known story completes the race told on Gaṇeśa’s page. Murugan returns from circling the world to find that his brother has won the fruit of wisdom by circling their parents. Hurt, he renounces everything and goes to the hill. Shiva and Pārvatī follow and console him: paḻam nī, “you yourself are the fruit” — the source, devotees say, of the name Paḻani. The poetic etymology is beloved; the story is also told in temple tradition and was popularised by Tamil cinema.

Songs of Murugan

Tamil devotion to Murugan is above all sung:

• Arunagirinathar (15th century) of Tiruvannamalai composed the Tiruppukaḻ, over 1,300 surviving songs in dazzling rhythms, alongside the Kantar Alaṅkāram and the Kantar Anubhūti, a short work of mystical experience prized by contemplatives.
• Kanda Ṣaṣṭhī Kavasam, the “armour of Kanda Ṣaṣṭhī,” by Devarāya Swāmigaḷ (19th century), asks Murugan to protect every part of the body and every hour of life. Recited daily in countless Malaysian homes, it is especially chanted during the six days of Kanda Ṣaṣṭhī.
• The six-syllable mantra சரவணபவ ca-ra-va-ṇa-pa-va — Saravaṇabhava — and the great cry of Thaipusam, வெற்றிவேல் முருகனுக்கு அரோகரா veṟṟivēl murukaṉukku arōkarā, “victory to the vēl, hail to Murugan!”

Thaipusam

Murugan’s greatest festival in Malaysia is Thaipusam தைப்பூசம், on the day of the Pūsam star in the Tamil month of Tai (January–February), usually at the full moon. Many devotees say it marks the day Pārvatī gave Murugan his vēl. Popular tradition (See Thaipusam for the full festival page.)

Community practice Devotees prepare with a vow and a period of discipline — often forty-eight days, sometimes less — eating vegetarian food, keeping celibate, sleeping simply and praying daily. On the day they carry offerings to the god:

• Pāl kuṭam — a pot of milk on the head, poured over the vēl or the image;
• kavadi — from a simple wooden arch on the shoulders to towering frames decorated with peacock feathers, sometimes held by hooks or with small vēls piercing the skin, carried in trance-like devotion to drums and chanting. The custom is traced to Iṭumpaṉ, who carried two hills slung from a pole to Palani for Murugan; his shrine stands at the foot of many Murugan hills, including Batu Caves.
• Shaving the head, and simply climbing the steps in prayer.

At Batu Caves, north of Kuala Lumpur, the Sri Subramaniar Swamy temple in the great limestone Temple Cave was founded in 1891 by K. Thamboosamy Pillay, also the patron of the Sri Maha Mariamman Temple in the city. On the eve of Thaipusam, a silver chariot carries Murugan from that temple to the caves, a night-long procession of about 15 km. At the foot of the 272 steps stands the golden statue of Lord Murugan, 42.7 m (140 ft) high, unveiled in January 2006 — among the tallest Murugan images in the world. Hundreds of thousands come, Hindus and others, from across Malaysia and beyond.

In Penang, a silver chariot — in use since 1894, replacing an earlier wooden one, and cared for by the Nattukottai Chettiar community — carries the god from the Kovil Veedu on Penang Street to the Chettiars’ Thandayuthapani temple on Waterfall Road. Along the way devotees smash thousands of coconuts before it. In recent years a golden chariot has joined the festival, bound for the hilltop Arulmigu Balathandayuthapani temple nearby.

Murugan around the world

Wherever Tamils settled, Murugan went with them. In Sri Lanka, the forest shrine of Kataragama (Katirkāmam) in the south is sacred to Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and the Vedda people alike, and the Nallur Kandaswamy temple in Jaffna holds a great festival each year. In Singapore, kavadi bearers walk from the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple to the Sri Thendayuthapani Temple on Tank Road. Mauritius keeps “Thaipoosam Cavadee” as a public holiday, and in South Africa kavadi festivals have been held around Durban for over a century. There are Murugan temples in Australia, Canada, Britain and the Caribbean too.

Questions people often ask

Key terms on this page

Sources & further reading

• Fred W. Clothey, The Many Faces of Murukan: The History and Meaning of a South Indian God (Mouton, 1978).
• Kamil V. Zvelebil, Tiru Murugan (International Institute of Tamil Studies, 1981); and The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil Literature of South India (Brill, 1973).
• Kālidāsa, The Birth of Kumāra, trans. David Smith (Clay Sanskrit Library, 2005).
• Elizabeth Fuller Collins, Pierced by Murugan’s Lance: Ritual, Power, and Moral Redemption among Malaysian Hindus (Northern Illinois University Press, 1997).
• Carl Vadivella Belle, Thaipusam in Malaysia: A Hindu Festival Misunderstood? (ISEAS, 2017).
• J. V. Chelliah (trans.), Pattupattu: Ten Tamil Idylls — includes the Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai.