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Re: ARTICLE : A stotra on skanda
anand hudli wrote:
> TamilNadu has a rich tradition of Skanda worship. Perhaps you could
> post some of the details regarding this. On what occassions is Skanda
> especially worshipped? What is His relationship to Ayyappa? Are the
> two the same?
No, they are not the same. Ayyapan was born to Shiva and Mohini (an avatara of
vishhhNu). skanda however was born straight out of the semen of shiva. The
story goes that that tarakaasura (I hope I am right in the name of the asura)
got a boon from brahma that he could be destroyed by a person born out of the
semen of shiva. After that he started harassing everyone esp, Indra. So all
of them prayed that shiva should help them. So shiva gave his semen to devi
who could not stand the intensity of it. It was then given to Agni who
deposited it in the waters of ga.nga. Six babies were born out of it and the
six kaartika virgins nursed the baby. The six babies were brought to paarvati
and they became one skanda with six heads. (Ofcourse the semen is not to be
understood in the mundane sense, but rather that skanda is formed out of the
rethas of shiva and is hence a personification of pure jnaana.)
That's why we have the names kaartikeya, agninandana, and gaa.ngeya in the
stotra. In the 108 names he is also called paarvatii nandana. Popular stories
about skanda are how he instructed the meaning of Om to brahma, the killing of
taarakaasura, piercing the krau.ncha mountain etc. I remember only the bare
details. I'll try to get the exact stories later and post them. I also forgot
special days for worshiping skanda. My father is an expert on skanda. I'll ask
him to write me a letter about him sometime and post that in srh.
There are many important kshetras like pazani (our kula devata BTW), pazamuthir
cholai, thiruththaNi, etc. The speciality of pazani is that the idol is made of
paashaaNam. It was installed by a siddha, and the abishekam from it is credited
with medicinal properties. The famous vaLLi malai swamigaL, who re-popularized
thirupukaz recital got cured of his chronic stomach ache by pazani prasaadam.
An interesting thing is that the swamigaL was a kannadiga by birth and did not
know thamiz. The thirupukaz was taught to him by none other than ramaNa
maharshhi himself! After this the swamigaL established thirupukaz bajanai
sabhas all over TN, and my grand mother also learnt it's recital from him!
Another interesting place is thiru kazukunDram, where 2 eagles come at around
noon and accept prasadam. This happens every day at around the same time and
has been going on for atleast the past 1000 years. I have had the good fortune
of going to this temple and witnessing this fact. The fact about the eagles is
mentioned in "Ripley's believe it or not" also.
There is also a lot of thamiz poetry on murukan. The earliest seems to be
thirumurukaatRuppaDai, by nakkiirar. He composed this to get rid of the paapa
due to the fact that he was a tapo bhrashhTa. There are also various other
things like pazani thiruvaairam, muthu kumarasvami pillai thamiz etc.
Incidentally the root "skand" means to leap or go. So skanda is the person who
helps us leap over the misery of ajnaana, by granting jnaana. Another common
name for him is guha, signifying that he resides in the heart.
Ramakrishnan.
--
Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant (May faulty logic
undermine your entire philosophy) -- strong Vulcan curse
http://yake.ecn.purdue.edu/~rbalasub/
