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Oh Muruga! Where Art Thou?

Shiv family (North)
Siva family (South)
Coin, 200BCE, Indus Valley
Somebody said that Hinduism is amalgamation of believes of many in the one God with various manifestations and names. The earlier settlers who jump started the civilization in the Indus Valley had their own Gods of worship. Along came the culture from the North, either by cultural or physical invasion. Their mode of worship was forcibly or by diffusion infused into the society. Some society members never forgot their predecessor icons and continued worshipping them in their own way and stories were created to substantiate their practice.
With that background in my mind, I was not at all surprised when the secretary of the temple, on his routine weekly announcement of events of the following week, totally omitted Thaipusam in his list. He was faithfully reading out on this prayer and that prayer and Shivrathri. That's it!
Actually, Murugan (Kaarthikeyan) has been hanging around the scriptures since the first millennium BCE. Somewhere along way, Murugan who appeared as the elder son of Shiva disappeared in some scriptures and appeared in other the younger brother of Ganesh and the eternal manifestation of youth. From the middle ages, He disappears from the North but makes sporadic appearances in certain parts of India like Haryana, Punjab, Bengal and Maharashtra.
Happy Thaipusam! Just call his name and He will come flying down in his peacock....
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Comments

  1. Anonymous8 February 2012 at 16:27

    You are right . They completely forgot about Murugan. Vel Vel!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12 February 2012 at 16:56

    Maybe because Lord Muruga ran away from his home so he is not in the family photo in North.
    The South family photo must be during the happier time.
    Anyway the yeleei (mouse) missing too. Anyone?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous12 February 2012 at 16:58

    The coin might be in a form of flyer asking people to look for Lord Muruga since he is missing from home.

    ReplyDelete

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