सनातन पुस्तकालय Sanatan Cultural Library

Kartikeya is the deva-senapati — commander of the armies of heaven — born for a single purpose: to end the demon Tarakasura, who could die only by a son of Shiva. He is the god of victorious youth: eternally young Kumara, six-faced Shanmukha seeing in every direction, riding the peacock that dances on the serpent of ego. His lance, the Vel, is his mother's own shakti — the piercing point of discrimination that splits ignorance. In North India his worship is quieter today (Kartik Purnima and Shashti keep it), but in the Tamil lands he is Murugan, “the beautiful one,” God of the hills, of the Tamil language itself, drawing millions to his six abodes — the Arupadai Veedu — at Palani, Tiruchendur, Tiruttani and beyond.

The gods, tormented by Tarakasura, needed a son of Shiva — then lost in meditation after Sati's death. When Shiva and Parvati were at last united, his fiery seed, too intense for any bearer, passed through Agni and Ganga to the reed forest of Sharavana, where six Krittika maidens nursed the six-faced child — Sharavanabhava, Kartikeya of the Krittikas. Leading the devas, he pierced Tarakasura with the Vel; at Tiruchendur the Tamil tradition adds Surapadma, whom the Vel split into the peacock he rides and the rooster on his banner — the enemy transformed into vahana and emblem. In the contest with Ganesha to circle the world he flew around the earth itself, and finding his brother had already won by circling their parents, retired south to Palani — where his hilltop form as the renunciate boy is among the most beloved images in the Tamil world.

Shashti — the sixth tithi — is his day; Skanda Shashti after Deepavali is kept in the Tamil month of Aippasi with six days of fasting, culminating in the Soorasamharam re-enactment of the demon's defeat. Thaipusam, when devotees carry the kavadi in fulfilment of vows, and Vaikasi Visakam, his birth star, fill his temples from Tamil Nadu to Malaysia and beyond. His offerings are the panchamirtham of Palani, milk brought in pots, and the discipline of the body itself in kavadi vows. The mantra “oṃ śaravaṇabhavāya namaḥ” carries his birth-name; Kartik Purnima, the full moon of his month, honours him in the North alongside Dev Deepawali.