Kartikeya is the son of Shiva and Parvati, the war-god of the Hindu pantheon, the elder brother of Ganesha, and the principal deity of Tamil-speaking Shaiva tradition where he is known as Murugan. His birth story is told in the Skanda Purana (which is named for him; Skanda is another of his names), the Shiva Purana (Rudra Samhita, Kumara Khanda), and the Mahabharata’s Vana Parva (Sections 224 to 232). The birth is connected to the asura Tarakasura, who had a boon from Brahma that he could be killed only by a son of Shiva; the gods needed Shiva and Parvati to produce a son, and the narrative tracks the conditions under which that son could be born. This article traces the birth story, the meaning of his six heads, and his place in north and south Indian Shaiva tradition.
Kartikeya in iconography
Kartikeya is depicted in two principal iconographic forms across India. The northern form (more common in Bengal, Maharashtra, and the central Indian temple traditions) shows him as a young man, single-headed, holding a spear (the Vel) and seated on a peacock. The southern form (the Murugan tradition in Tamil Nadu) shows him with six faces and twelve arms, also holding the spear, also seated on the peacock. The peacock (Paravani) and the cock (which appears on his battle standard) are both consistent across regions. In the Tamil Murugan temples, particularly the six principal abodes (Arupadai Veedu), the six-faced form is standard.
The need for Shiva’s son: the Tarakasura boon
The Skanda Purana opens the birth narrative with the asura Tarakasura. Taraka had performed long austerities and obtained from Brahma a boon that he could be killed only by a son of Shiva. At the time the boon was granted, Shiva was in deep meditation following the death of his first consort Sati. He had no consort, and the gods had no way to procure his son. Taraka, having taken the boon, conquered the three worlds and displaced Indra from his throne. The gods (Indra leading) approached Brahma for a solution; Brahma told them that Parvati, the daughter of Himavan, was a partial incarnation of Sati and would, in time, become Shiva’s consort. The son required to kill Tarakasura would be born of that union.
The marriage of Shiva and Parvati and the disturbed conception
Parvati performed long austerities, attracted Shiva’s notice, and was married to him. The Skanda Purana describes the union as extended over a long period; the gods, anxious for the son to be born and Tarakasura to be killed, became concerned that the union was unproductive. Indra dispatched Agni (the fire god) to interrupt and to receive Shiva’s seed. Agni took the form of a parrot or, in some accounts, a beggar, and approached Shiva. Shiva, disturbed in his contemplation, released his seed; Agni received it. The seed was too powerful for Agni to hold and he passed it to Ganga (the river goddess); Ganga also could not hold it and deposited it in a reed forest on the slopes of Mount Sumeru.
The six Krittikas and the six-faced child
In the reed forest, the seed transformed into six divine infants, one in each of the six lotus blossoms of the reed bed. The six Krittikas (the stars of the Pleiades cluster, also a constellation in Indian astronomy) were passing and found the infants. They each adopted one of the six infants and nursed them. Parvati, on hearing of the birth, came to the Krittikas and embraced all six infants at once; in her embrace they fused into a single child with six heads and twelve arms. This is the canonical Skanda Purana account, in the Skanda Mahatmya section.
The name Kartikeya derives from the Krittikas (in Sanskrit, the offspring of the Krittikas is Kartikeya). The name Shanmukha, also widely used, means “the six-faced”. The name Skanda is the principal Puranic name and is the source of the Skanda Purana itself. The name Subrahmanya emphasises his role as the protector and patron of brahmin learning. The name Murugan, primary in Tamil tradition, means “the youth” or “the beautiful one” and is the Dravidian form of the deity who was later assimilated to the Sanskrit Skanda.
The Mahabharata account: an older version
The Mahabharata’s Vana Parva, Sections 224 to 232, gives an older and substantially different account. In this telling, Kartikeya is the son of Agni and Svaha, not directly of Shiva and Parvati. Svaha, who loved Agni, took the form of the wives of six of the seven sages (the Saptarishi) one by one to be intimate with Agni; she could not take the form of Arundhati (Vasishtha’s wife) because of Arundhati’s chastity. From these unions came six children who fused into one. The Vana Parva uses this account to explain the six faces and the connection to the Krittikas without going through the Shiva-and-Parvati conception narrative.
For what it’s worth, the Mahabharata account is the older textual stratum and the Skanda Purana account is the later synthesis that integrated Kartikeya into the Shiva-and-Parvati family. Modern scholarship treats the Tamil Murugan and the Sanskrit Skanda as two different deities that were merged over the early medieval period: the Tamil Murugan was a much older Dravidian war-god of the Tamil country, attested in the Sangam literature from before the common era; the Sanskrit Skanda came in through the Vedic and Puranic synthesis. The merger gave the single deity who is worshipped today at temples from Pala Maharashtra to Pazhani Tamil Nadu.
The killing of Tarakasura
Skanda, by the age of seven (in some accounts even younger), led the gods’ armies against Tarakasura. The Skanda Purana, in the section called Tarakasura Vadha, describes the battle. Tarakasura’s brothers Surapadma and Simhamukha appear alongside him in some Tamil retellings; the principal villain in the southern accounts is Surapadma, and the battle is at Tiruchendur on the Tamil coast. Kartikeya’s Vel (the spear) cuts through Surapadma’s body, splitting him in two; the two halves transform into the peacock (which becomes Skanda’s mount) and the cock (which becomes his standard). This iconographic detail is specifically Tamil and is the origin story for Tiruchendur as one of the six principal Murugan temples.
The six principal Murugan temples: Arupadai Veedu
Tamil tradition identifies six principal abodes of Murugan, the Arupadai Veedu, each associated with a specific episode in the Skanda or Murugan narrative:
- Palani (Pazhani), Dindigul district: the hill temple where Murugan came after losing the mango contest to Ganesha.
- Tiruchendur, Tuticorin district: the coastal temple where Murugan killed Surapadma.
- Swamimalai, Thanjavur district: the temple where Murugan instructed Shiva himself on the meaning of the syllable Om.
- Tiruparankunram, Madurai district: the temple where Murugan married Devasena, daughter of Indra.
- Pazhamudircholai, Madurai district: the forest hill temple associated with the Tamil saint Avvaiyar’s encounter with Murugan.
- Tiruttani, Tiruvallur district: the temple where Murugan married Valli, his second consort.
Common questions
Why is Kartikeya more prominent in south India than north?
Kartikeya’s Tamil identity as Murugan predates his Sanskrit identity as Skanda by centuries, and Tamil Shaivism developed an extensive Murugan tradition that includes the six Arupadai Veedu temples, the Skanda Purana retellings, and the Kanda Puranam (the Tamil version of the Skanda Purana, composed by Kachiappa Sivacharyar in the 14th century). North India has Kartikeya temples (notably at Pehowa in Haryana and at the Kartikeya Mandir at Pratapgarh) but the tradition is much smaller in scale. The reasons include the survival of the Dravidian Murugan substrate in the south and the relative absence of an equivalent ancient substrate in the north.
Why does Kartikeya have two wives?
The Tamil tradition gives Kartikeya two consorts: Devasena, daughter of Indra, whom he married in the north Indian Skanda Purana narrative (at Tiruparankunram in the southern adaptation); and Valli, a tribal girl of the hill country, whom he married in the Tamil tradition (at Tiruttani). The two wives are read as the celestial and the terrestrial brides; in Tamil temple practice, both shrines stand beside Murugan’s. The dual marriage is a Tamil expansion of the originally single-consort north Indian narrative.
Why is Kartikeya associated with the peacock?
The peacock is Kartikeya’s mount (Paravani). In the Tamil account, the peacock is the form one half of Surapadma took after Murugan split him with the Vel; Murugan accepted it as his mount. In the Sanskrit Skanda Purana, the peacock is presented to Skanda by Indra as a gift; the peacock has subdued a serpent and Skanda treats this as the image of his own victory over asuras. The two accounts give different origins for the same iconographic detail.
One limitation worth noting
The Kartikeya material is spread across the Mahabharata, the Skanda Purana, the Shiva Purana, the Tamil Kanda Puranam, and a wide range of regional traditions. The summary above leans on the Skanda Purana account for the birth and on the Tamil tradition for the Arupadai Veedu. A reader using the Mahabharata’s older version, or a particular Tamil Shaiva commentary, will find different emphasis and some different detail. The texts do not all agree; the lived practice has worked out a synthesis that allows multiple narratives to coexist.
For deeper textual treatment, see the Wikipedia entries on Kartikeya and on the Arupadai Veedu temples.
