Devalok
Local story · 2 tellings · Pan-India, South India

Ayyappa and his companion Vavar

Kerala's Ayyappa, born of Shiva and Mohini, grows up in Pandalam, defeats the demoness Mahishi and keeps a Muslim companion whose mosque still faces his temple at Erumely.

Who is in it

  • Ayyappa protagonist, the celibate yogi-god
  • Vavar Muslim companion and fellow warrior
  • Shiva father
  • Mohini mother, Vishnu's female form
  • Vishnu father through the Mohini form

The story, beat by beat

  1. Shiva and Vishnu-as-Mohini have a son destined to end the demoness Mahishi.
  2. The infant is found on a riverbank by the childless king of Pandalam and raised as a prince.
  3. Sent to the forest for tigress's milk, the youth meets and defeats Mahishi.
  4. Mahishi, freed, asks to marry him; he refuses, vowing celibacy, and promises to wed only when no first-time pilgrim comes.
  5. He befriends Vavar, a Muslim sea-raider turned devotee, who fights beside him.
  6. Ayyappa takes his seat at Sabarimala; pilgrims first salute Vavar's mosque at Erumely.

celibacy demon slaying friendship interfaith mohini

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Temple tradition

Sabarimala / Kerala tradition

South India · Sabarimala, Pandalam and Erumely, Kerala Folk Malayalam-speaking Kerala

In the Kerala telling the son of Shiva and Mohini does not stay in the heavens. He is discovered as a baby by the king of Pandalam, grows up as a prince, and is sent into the forest on an errand that brings him face to face with the buffalo-demoness Mahishi, whom he kills. Released from her curse she asks for his hand; he declines, binds himself to celibacy, and promises marriage only in a year when no new pilgrim climbs to him. On his travels he wins the friendship of Vavar, a Muslim raider who becomes his ally and devotee. Pilgrims to Sabarimala still stop at Vavar's mosque at Erumely, which stands across from an Ayyappa shrine, before they begin the climb. Tradition holds that the friendship is as old as the god's own story.

Vavar — Wikipedia; Ayyappan — Wikipedia; Sabarimala: mythology; Lord Ayyappa of Sabarimala

Encyclopedia

Puranic Shasta

Pan-India All traditions

The Puranic Shasta or Hariharaputra is simply the son of Shiva and Vishnu's Mohini form, a divine child born after the churning of the ocean.

What is different here:

The Pandalam childhood, the forest errand, Mahishi and Vavar are all Kerala additions; the Puranic Shasta has none of them and no Sabarimala.

Ayyappan — Wikipedia

Sources: Vavar — Wikipedia; Ayyappan — Wikipedia; Sabarimala: mythology; Lord Ayyappa of Sabarimala

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