The Birth of Kārttikeya

The gods wait

Śiva and Pārvatī were married, but the demon Tāraka still ruled heaven, and only a son of Śiva could kill him. The gods waited — and waited. Śiva and Pārvatī had withdrawn together, and ages seemed to pass.

At last the gods, anxious, sent Agni, the god of fire, to find out what was happening. In the Śiva Purāṇa, Agni came near in the form of a dove, and Śiva's divine seed — a fire brighter than any fire — passed to him.

A fire no one could hold

Even Agni, who burns everything, could not bear it. The fierce energy burned inside him until he could hold it no longer. He carried it to the Gaṅgā and laid it in her waters.

The Gaṅgā too could not hold it. Her waters boiled. She carried it to her bank and set it down in a forest of śara reeds on the slopes of the Himālaya. There, in the reed forest — the Śaravaṇa — the fire became a child, glowing like the rising sun.

Six mothers, six faces

Six shining women came upon the child: the Kṛttikās, the six stars of the Pleiades. Each wanted to nurse him. So the child grew six faces, one for each of them, and drank from all six at once.

That is why he has so many names. He is Kārttikeya, son of the Kṛttikās; Ṣaṇmukha, the six-faced; Śaravaṇabhava, born in the reeds; Skanda, the one who leapt forth; Gāṅgeya, son of the Gaṅgā; and Kumāra, the eternal youth.

Pārvatī finds her son

When Pārvatī learned of the child, she came to the reed forest. Some tellings say there were six children, one for each Kṛttikā, and when Pārvatī embraced them all at once, they became a single child with six heads and twelve arms. Śiva and Pārvatī took him home to Kailāsa with joy.

The commander of the gods

The child grew in days into a radiant young warrior. The gods came to him and asked him to lead them. He was consecrated as Devasenāpati, commander of the armies of heaven. He was given a spear that never misses — in Tamil devotion called the Vel, and said to be given to him by his mother — and the peacock became his mount.

The war with Tāraka was long and terrible. At last Kārttikeya faced the demon himself, and with one throw of his spear he struck Tāraka down. The boon had been fulfilled exactly as it was spoken: Tāraka died at the hands of a son of Śiva. Heaven was restored to the gods.

Murugan

In the Tamil lands he is loved above all as Murugan — the beautiful young god of the hills, worshipped at his six sacred abodes, the Āṟupaṭaivīṭu. There, the story of his war is told as his victory over the demon Sūrapadman, who, pierced by the Vel, became his peacock and his rooster banner.