Devalok
Legend · 2 tellings · Pan-India, South India

The race around the world

Who is in it

  • Ganesha wins by circling his parents
  • Kartikeya races around the world on his peacock
  • Shiva sets the contest
  • Parvati mother; with Shiva, the world Ganesha circles
  • Narada brings the fruit (Tamil telling)
  • Palani where Murugan goes (Tamil telling)
  • Srisailam where Shiva and Parvati follow him (Puranic telling)

Texts: Shiva Purana

The story, beat by beat

  1. Shiva and Parvati must choose between their two sons.
  2. They set a contest: whoever goes around the whole world first wins.
  3. Kartikeya sets off at once on his peacock.
  4. Ganesha, heavy and riding a mouse, walks around his parents instead.
  5. He says his parents are the whole world to him, and the texts agree that circling one's parents equals circling the earth.
  6. Ganesha is declared the winner.
  7. Kartikeya returns, finds the prize given away and leaves home in anger.
  8. His parents follow him; the place where he settles becomes holy.

sibling rivalry wisdom parents contest

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Encyclopedia

Shiva Purana and Srisailam

Pan-India · Srisailam, Andhra Pradesh Shaiva

Shiva and Parvati decided it was time for their sons to marry, and to settle who should marry first they set a race: once around the whole world. Kartikeya was gone on his peacock before the words were finished. Ganesha, whose mount was a mouse, bathed, came back, walked around his parents and bowed. Asked what he meant by it, he said the scriptures themselves hold that to go around one's father and mother is to go around the earth, and his parents could hardly call their own scriptures wrong. They gave him the victory and married him to Siddhi and Buddhi. When Kartikeya came home and found the wedding over, he took it as a deceit, left Kailash and went to live alone on Mount Krauncha. Shiva and Parvati went after him; when he would not come back they stayed near him, and the hill where they stayed is Srisailam, where Shiva is worshipped as Mallikarjuna and Parvati as Bhramaramba.

Mallikarjuna Temple, Srisailam — Wikipedia; Ganesha — Wikipedia; The Siva Purana (4 vols), tr. J. L. Shastri — via Wisdom Library § rudra-samhita.kumara-khanda unverified

Encyclopedia

Palani: the fruit of knowledge

South India · Palani, Tamil Nadu Shaiva

In the Tamil country the prize is a single fruit. The sage Narada comes to Kailash with the fruit of knowledge, the gnana pazham, and Shiva, unwilling to cut it, says it will go to whichever son circles the world three times first. Murugan flies off on his peacock. Ganesha reasons that the world is no more than his father and mother together, walks around them and receives the fruit. Murugan comes back to find it eaten, feels cheated, gives up everything he has and goes south to the Palani hills as a young hermit, head shaven, in a loincloth, holding only a staff. That is the Dandayudhapani form worshipped on the hill today, and devotees like to say the parents followed him there and told him he was the fruit himself.

What is different here:

The prize is Narada's fruit of knowledge, not marriage; three circuits instead of one; Murugan becomes the ascetic Dandayudhapani at Palani rather than going to Krauncha; the 'you are the fruit' consolation is devotional tradition.

Palani Murugan Temple — Wikipedia; Kartikeya — Wikipedia

Sources: Mallikarjuna Temple, Srisailam — Wikipedia; Ganesha — Wikipedia; The Siva Purana (4 vols), tr. J. L. Shastri — via Wisdom Library; Palani Murugan Temple — Wikipedia; Kartikeya — Wikipedia

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How a tradition frames it

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The Smarta school worships five deities — Ganesha, Shiva, Shakti, Vishnu and Surya, with Kartikeya added in the south — set in a quincunx around the worshipper's chosen one, as equal forms of the one Brahman; tradition credits Adi Shankara, though the practice is older.
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In stone and bronze

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The pillar of light

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Festival story

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