The lamp on the hill

On the evening of the Karthigai full moon a flame is carried out of the sanctum at Tiruvannamalai at the same moment as a great cauldron of ghee is lit on the top of the hill, and the light can be seen across the plain. The town says the hill is the pillar of fire itself, the column that Brahma flew up and Vishnu dug down and neither could measure, cooled into rock so that people could live near it; the beacon is that pillar burning again for one night. Families across Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the Tamil parts of Sri Lanka set out rows of clay lamps at their doors, a custom old enough to be sung in the Sangam Akananuru, and the Karthigai star that gives the month its name also names the six mothers who nursed Murugan, so the same lamps are his.