Two streams

One god, two traditions — a northern war-god, and the most beloved deity in the south, who is older still

The red god of the hills

Tamil's oldest poetry — from the Sangam age, two thousand years old — knows a god: Murugan.

There he is the god of the hills, of the "kurinji" land. Youth, war and love are his. His colour is red. His mark is a lance — the vel. A rooster and a peacock ride his banner.

He is worshipped by a priest called a "velan", who dances himself into the god's possession.

Nakkirar's Tirumurukarruppatai — "the guide to Lord Murugan" — is one of the oldest sustained hymns to any Hindu deity. It also names his six shrines.

The general of the north

Away in the north, around the same time, there is a different god: Skanda.

On the coins of the Yaudheya republic he stands with a spear and a peacock — a state deity. On the coins of the Kushan king Huvishka his names appear — Skanda, Kumara, Mahasena, Vishakha.

The Gupta kings named themselves for him — Kumaragupta, Skandagupta — and Kumaragupta I's coins show Kartikeya seated on a peacock.

Here he is a warrior, the general of the gods.

An older layer still

But in the oldest layer Skanda is not so gentle.

In the Mahabharata's own Skanda passage, and in medical texts like the Sushruta, "Skanda", "Vishakha" and "Kumara" are counted among the spirits that seize and afflict small children — spirits you performed a rite to keep away.

The gentle general is a later resolution. It is the same with Ganesha, who began as a troublesome power.

Two rivers met

By the Gupta period the two gods are taken as one.

Birth from the Krittikas, the Taraka war, being the son of Shiva and Parvati — that is the northern frame. Tamil tradition takes it on, but keeps the vel, the peacock, the rooster, Valli and the six shrines as its own.

It would be wrong to say "he was always one god". It would also be wrong to say "the north stole a Tamil god". Both streams are old, and they met here.

Note: Murugan is an established deity in the Tamil Sangam literature (roughly 3rd century BCE to 3rd century CE) — god of the kurinji (hill) land, with the vel, the peacock and the rooster; Nakkirar's Tirumurukarruppatai is his oldest sustained hymn and names six shrines. In the north Skanda is a war-god on Yaudheya coins of the early centuries CE and on Kushan coins under Huvishka in the 2nd century CE; northern images of Karttikeya-Skanda are independently attested by about the 1st century BCE. The Gupta kings Kumaragupta and Skandagupta are named for him. In the Mahabharata's Skanda passage and early medical texts, "Skanda / Vishakha / Kumara" are also child-afflicting grahas — the benign-general form is later (as with Ganesha). By the Gupta age the Tamil Murugan and the northern Skanda are being identified. Murugan has in modern times been claimed both as a symbol of Tamil-Dravidian identity and as fully a pan-Hindu deity; the antiquity of his Tamil worship is not in dispute, and this epic takes no side in that politics.

Source: from several texts and traditions, Two streams