The Thai Poosam festival, celebrated at Palani Murugan Temple, is rooted in the Hindu Legend from time immemorial. Obviously, it is an auspicious day celebrated by people in Tamil Nadu, and Palani Murugan temple deserves a special mention here. Basically, Palani is a small town in the Dindigul district where Lord Muruga abides in the temple atop the hill called Sivagiri. Palani is one of the famous six abodes of Lord Muruga. Out of all the festivals celebrated throughout the year, Thai Poosam is very auspicious, especially at Palani Murugan Temple.
You can witness lakhs and lakhs of devotees reaching Palani barefoot, travelling across the different sections of the state and the country as well. After undergoing rigid rituals and fasting for 48 days, the devotees come to Palani to offer their prayers to their beloved deity, Lord Muruga. Here in Palani, he stands as Lord Dhandayuthapani Swamy. He is in the form of an ascetic boy with only a loincloth and no other finery. He has a stick in his hand called Dhandam, the reason behind His name.
Significance of Thai Poosam
Besides these, the devotees carry milk pots on their heads, wooden decks with beautiful decorations on their shoulders and the lances piercing their bodies. With this kind of dedication and devotion, the pilgrims reach the hilltop, climbing more than 650 steps. As this festival correlates to the victory of the God over the demons, people believe that by worshipping Lord Muruga on this day, they will be victorious in their lives, defeating all evils from within themselves and also from the materialistic world.
The general practice is that people observe rituals for 48 days before the festival. They are strictly away from smoking, drinking and other sinful activities. Most of them eat only once a day for all 48 days. Well ahead of the festival day, the devotees carrying the offerings to the Lord in long pageants from the different parts of the country start their journey to worship their Lord at Palani.
First of all, the journey to Palani will be full of many hardships. It is quite common to see limousines queuing behind the pageant where the owners are walking barefoot.
Kaavadi in Thai Poosam
The main attraction of this festival is the Kaavadi. It is nothing but a wooden mount aesthetically decorated with flowers and peacock feathers. The devotees, as an offering to God, carry the Kaavadis on their shoulders, walking barefoot from very long distances to the temple and implore God to solve their problems. Normally, the number of Kaavadis reaching the shrine exceeds fifty thousand, and the count is in an increasing trend year on year. The common forms of kaavadi are milk, sandalwood paste and rosewater. Apart from this, lakhs of people carry milk pots on their heads, wearing ochre clothes. Tons of flowers in orange and yellow colours are offered to the Lord on this day. We can witness and enjoy the devotees dancing to the tune of drums and tom-tom played on the way to the top of the hill, with all the weight on their shoulders. They dance so vigorously as if they are hypnotised by the music.
Another form of offering to the God is that the ardent devotees torture their bodies by piercing their cheeks, tongue and skin with lances, and even they draw chariots with metal hooks pierced into their skin. It will be threatening to see a large mass of people walking like this, but you will not find any words to admire the devotion and dedication of the devotees and their faith in God.
Murugan in Tamil Culture
Murugan means beauty in Tamil. Somehow or other, Lord Muruga has been a part and parcel of the life of most of the Tamil families. You can see people named as Kandhan, Murugan, Karthikeyan, Subramanian, Vadivelan, Dhandayudhpani, and Velayudham in the majority of the Tamil families because the culture and tradition of the Tamil people revolve mainly around Lord Murugan. The festival Thai Poosam inculcates confidence in every Tamil’s mind and gives him a morale boost to face any hardships in life and overcome them with the benevolence and blessings of God. As Lord Murugan is diasporic, the festival is celebrated in a very grand manner in Singapore, Malaysia and the USA. More than two million people attend this festival in Batu Caves, Malaysia, every year. Lord Murugan is believed to be such a powerful deity that whoever surrenders to his feet will be triumphant in all his endeavours.
Let’s visit Palani, where Lord Muruga is waiting to bestow his blessings on us.
