Today, after nearly a century of displacement of the Tamil labourers, the scholars of Tamil diaspora report that the Indian Ocean island nations have vast mango groves, Tamil women with jasmine flowers on their hair and coriander plants in their gardens. The other 'Tamil essentials' of the inundated labourers included coriander plants, mango seeds, jasmine saplings and chutney grinder ( ammikkal). The importance of Valli Thirumanam (the marriage of Valli) to Tamil life can be gauged by the report that when the Tamil inundated labourers were taken on a one-way ticket to distant lands such as the Indian Ocean islands, they carried chapbook editions of Valli Thirumanam and Kanda Sashti Kavasam with them. Some interpretations of Murugan mythologies see in his two wives a balance of societal high and low, but Murugan's love affair with Valli and his eventual marriage with her is more revered in many Tamil folk dramas, songs and ritual enactments. His first wife Devayani is God Indra’s daughter, while the second Valli is a gypsy (Kurati). In the mythological stories, Murugan has two wives. The trance behaviour, known in the Tamil classical literature as Veriyattu, signifies ‘just anger’. Known as the Vel Vaangum Vakuppu (Receiving the Lance) in the Murugan mythologies, the devotees recite devotional hymns that narrate the event of the battle, and often slip into trance while doing so. With his lance, Murugan vanquished the demon Surapadman. According to mythology, Thai Pusam marks the day Murugan received his vel (lance) from his mother Goddess Parvati. Reciting Thirupukal and Kanda Sashti Kavasam during the pilgrimage and on festival days such as Thai Pusam is an integral part of Murugan worship today.Īnother aspect of the observance of this festival is the ‘going into a trance’ by devotees. In the 19th century, Devaraya Swamigal (born in 1820), composed Kanda Sasthi Kavasam-another popular hymn that glorifies Murugan. Arunagirinathar, a 15th century Tamil saint-poet, composed Thirupukal with complex, fast and poetic metres. Characterised by its fast rhythmic metres, Kavadi Sindhu produces enormous bodily energy for the foot pilgrims, and was also used in the past as motivational songs for the army going to war. The practice, which is vibrant even today, had given birth to a literary genre called Kavadi Sindhu in Tamil. In the Sangam age classical Tamil literature, we read that the worship of Murugan essentially consists of pilgrimage on foot, carrying kavadi (wooden arches decorated with peacock feathers) on the shoulders.
As a boy-child God, Murugan in Tamil culture symbolises embodiment of youth, valour, compassion, limitless generosity, destruction of ignorance, wisdom and knowledge, passionate love, equality and justice.
In the Arupadai Veedu (meaning, six battle stations) temples, Murugan, who is the supreme general of Shiva’s army, reigns as the youthful God. The sacred wounding of the body with piercings is part of Thai Pusam festivities (Photo Source: DaphneBreemen/Wikimedia Commons) The earliest poem of the Sangam Age dedicated to the glory of Murugan, Thirumurugatrupadai (3rd century CE) mentions six pilgrimage sites-Tiruttani Kai, Swamimalai, Thiru Avinankudi (Palani), Pazhamudircholai, Thirupparamkunram and Tiruchendur, which are famous Murugan temples (Arupadaiveedu) even today. Interestingly, as the Kurinchi flower symbolises youthful first love in Sangam poetics, and the presiding deity, Murugan, is also the Lord of war, the semantic binaries of love and war, are thus seemingly presented, as the central axis of Tamil culture. The earliest reference to Murugan in Tamil literature can be found in the Sangam classical period, where Murugan has been mentioned as the Lord of the Kurinchi landscape (mountains and mountainous regions).
Wherever there is a significant presence of Tamil community-be it in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore, South Africa, Canada, Réunion, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica or Europe-Thai Pusam brings the Tamils together, creates conventions and commits it to cultural memory.
#TAMIL GOD MURGA FULL#
The festival draws its name from the month of ‘Thai’ (mid-January to mid-February) in the Tamil calendar and the star ‘Pusam’ on a full moon day, which marks one of the six birthdays of the six-faced Lord Murugan (Skanda-Karthikeya in Sanskrit). The frenzy and fervour of the Thai Pusam festival (also spelt as Thaipusam, Thaipoosam and தைப்பூசம் in Tamil), wherever the Tamils celebrate it, are unmistakable. (Arunagirinathar, Thiruppukal, translation S. We explore the literary, scriptural, spiritual and anthropological connection between Murugan, the primary deity of the Tamil festival of Thai Pusam, and Tamil identity-especially in India and South East Asia (Photo Source: William Cho/Wikimedia Commons)