Karthigai Deepam

Karthigai Deepam is one of Tamil culture’s oldest festivals of light. Homes and temples are filled with rows of small oil lamps, while the grandest expression occurs at Tiruvannamalai, where a huge Maha Deepam is kindled on Arunachala hill. The best-known Shaiva legend tells that Brahma and Vishnu argued over supremacy until Shiva appeared as an endless column of fire. Vishnu went downward and Brahma upward seeking its limits, but neither could find the beginning or end; the fiery form revealed the immeasurable nature of Shiva. A second tradition connects the Krittika stars with the six infants who were nurtured by the Krittika maidens and united by Parvati as the six-faced Muruga. Thus the festival carries both Shiva and Muruga associations. Lighting lamps in homes symbolizes the removal of inner darkness, and the hilltop flame at Arunachala makes the ancient fire-column story dramatically visible across the landscape.

Karthigai Deepam is valued for devotion, family tradition and the spiritual or seasonal meaning attached to the day.

Agal lamps are set in rows along every doorway and wall at dusk - the day is decided at dusk for that reason. Pori urundai and appam are made. It falls on the Krittika star of Karthigai, and where the family keeps it for three days the lamps go out on the third.

Tamil Nadu above all, with Kerala, coastal Andhra and Sri Lanka keeping it too. The date wants the full moon to meet Krittika, so it is not simply the Kartik purnima that the north keeps as Dev Deepawali at Varanasi - though the two often coincide.