Devalok
Origin · 4 tellings · Pan-India, South India

The birth of Kartikeya

Who is in it

Texts: Mahabharata, Valmiki Ramayana, Shiva Purana, Kumarasambhava, Kanda Puranam

The story, beat by beat

  1. Taraka can be killed only by a son of Shiva.
  2. After the wedding Shiva's seed is too hot for any womb; Agni takes it.
  3. Agni cannot hold it and gives it to Ganga.
  4. Ganga lays it down in a reed forest, where it becomes six infants.
  5. The six star-mothers, the Krittikas, nurse them.
  6. Parvati presses the six into one child with six heads and twelve arms.
  7. He grows up in six days, leads the gods and kills Taraka.

birth six fire war

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Encyclopedia

Mahabharata (Shalya and Anushasana Parvas) and Kumarasambhava

Pan-India Shaiva

The gods had arranged the wedding for one purpose: Taraka could be killed by no one but Shiva's son. But the seed of Shiva was fire itself. Agni took it and could not bear it; he passed it to the river Ganga, and she, unable to hold it either, set it down among the reeds on her bank. There it became six babies. Six stars came down to feed them, the Krittikas, and each thought the child hers. When Parvati found them she gathered all six into her arms and pressed them into one boy with six faces and twelve arms, so that no mother should be denied. He was named for the stars that nursed him. Within days he was leading the army of the gods, and Taraka fell to his spear. The Mahabharata tells it in its later books and Kalidasa turned it into the Kumarasambhava, where the Krittikas bathe in the Ganga and conceive.

Kartikeya — Wikipedia; The Mahabharata, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883–96) — sacred-texts unverified

Encyclopedia

Mahabharata Vana Parva (son of Agni and Svaha)

Pan-India All traditions

In the forest book of the epic the child is Agni's. The fire-god desires the wives of the seven sages; Svaha, in love with him, takes their forms one by one, and from the seed she carries away is born Skanda in the reeds, six-headed because Svaha came to Agni six times.

What is different here:

Agni and Svaha are the parents; Shiva is absent from the conception.

Kartikeya — Wikipedia; The Mahabharata, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883–96) — sacred-texts unverified

Encyclopedia

Kanda Puranam (Tamil)

South India · Tamil Nadu Kaumara

The Tamil Kanda Puranam of Kachiyappa Sivachariar has no seed and no shame. From each of Shiva's six faces springs a spark; the wind carries the six sparks and the fire-god takes them to the Saravana lake, where they become six children on six lotuses. The Krittikas nurse them and Parvati joins them into one, the six-faced Murugan. From here the Tamil tradition takes him to his six hill abodes, his two brides Devayanai and Valli, and the mango contest with Ganesha that sent him sulking to Palani.

What is different here:

Sparks from Shiva's faces instead of seed; the Saravana lake; the Tamil sequel of six abodes and two consorts.

Kartikeya — Wikipedia

Encyclopedia

Karthigai Deepam telling

South India · Tamil Nadu Shaiva 🪔 Karthigai Deepam

On the night of the Karthigai lamps Tamil households remember that the six boys were raised by the Krittika maidens and joined into one by Parvati, and the star of that name rides the full moon overhead.

What is different here:

The festival version, keyed to the star.

Karthika Deepam — Wikipedia

Sources: Kartikeya — Wikipedia; The Mahabharata, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883–96) — sacred-texts; Karthika Deepam — Wikipedia

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