Devalok
Temple legend · 1 telling · South India

Parvati's penance on the hill of fire

Who is in it

Places: Tiruvannamalai (Arunachala)

The story, beat by beat

  1. After the quarrel of Brahma and Vishnu the pillar of fire cools into the red hill of Arunachala.
  2. Parvati, having covered Shiva's eyes in play and darkened the worlds, comes to the hill to atone.
  3. She lives as an ascetic at its foot and slays the demon Mahishasura there in Tamil tradition.
  4. On the full moon of Karthigai Shiva receives her back as his left half.
  5. The hill is the fire element among the five element shrines.
  6. Pilgrims walk the fourteen kilometres around it on every full moon.

penance reunion hill fire

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Temple tradition

Arunachalesvara temple tradition

South India · Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu Shaiva

Tiruvannamalai says its hill is the fire that Brahma and Vishnu could not measure, cooled into stone so that men could live beside it. The goddess came to that hill. She had put her hands over Shiva's eyes for a joke and the joke had put out every light there was, and to make up for it she left Kailash for the plain of the red mountain and lived at its foot in penance. Tamil tradition adds that while she was there the buffalo demon came, and she killed him. On the full moon of Karthigai the god took her back, not beside him but into him, as his left half, and the temple's greatest night lights the hill for that reunion. The hill is walked, not climbed: fourteen kilometres barefoot around it on every full moon and at Shivaratri.

Arunachalesvara Temple — Wikipedia; Karthika Deepam — Wikipedia; Maha Shivaratri — Wikipedia

Sources: Arunachalesvara Temple — Wikipedia; Karthika Deepam — Wikipedia; Maha Shivaratri — Wikipedia

More stories with the same people

Legend

The race around the world

Shiva and Parvati must choose between their two sons.
Legend

Bhrigu tests the three gods

Sages on the Saraswati bank ask Bhrigu to find which god is greatest.
Folk tale

The boar Shiva sent to earth

A piglet raised by Parvati in Shiva's garden grows wild; instead of killing it Shiva sends it down to protect people, and it becomes the Tulu guardian Panjurli.
Festival story

Shiva the begging farmer of the Gajan

At Bengal's Chaitra Gajan devotees become Shiva and his ganas, act out his marriage and beg from house to house; the god is a poor householder scolded by his wife.
Folk tale

Shiva takes up the plough

Rameswar Bhattacharya's 18th-century Bengali poem makes Shiva an illiterate, penniless villager who has to farm to feed his family.
Origin

Lingo frees the gods from Mahadeo's cave

Shiva as Mahadeo seals the Gond gods in a cave; Parvati searches for them; the hero Lingo lifts the stone, frees them and founds Gond society.
Origin

The pillar of light

Brahma and Vishnu quarrel over who is greater; Shiva appears as a column of fire without end; Brahma flies up as a gander and Vishnu digs down as a boar; Vishnu admits failure, Brahma lies with the ketaki as witness and is cursed. Tamil tradition roots the pillar at Tiruvannamalai.
Legend

Bhrigu tests the three gods

Sages send Bhrigu to find out which god is greatest. Brahma swallows his anger, Shiva raises his trident until his consort calms him, and Vishnu apologises after being kicked; the sages choose Vishnu. Temple and popular tellings add Lakshmi's departure, the Tirumala descent and curses on Brahma and Shiva.