The Mango Tree in the Sea

Surapadman had a boon, and with it he had taken the heavens. He held the gods prisoner in his island city in the sea, Veeramahendram, and made them work for him, and Indra, their king, hid where he could.

Only a son of Shiva could end it. So when Murugan was grown, which with him did not take long, Shiva called him.

"Go south," he said. "Free them."

His mother Parvati gave him her own lance, the Vel, with its leaf-shaped blade. Nine champions had been born from the jingling of her anklets, and they went with him, with Veerabahu at their head, and an army of Shiva's goblins behind.

They came down across the whole country, and at last they came to the sea, at the very south, and made their camp on the sand at Tiruchendur. Before the war Murugan wanted to worship his father, and the architect of the gods built him a small shrine to Shiva there on the shore.

Then he sent Veerabahu across the water, alone.

"Tell him to let the gods go," Murugan said. "Give him the chance."

Veerabahu stood in the hall of Surapadman and said what he had come to say.

"Who is this boy," Surapadman said, "that he sends me messages?" And he had the envoy insulted and thrown out.

So it was war. It went on for five days, in the air and under the earth, on the sea and in fire. Surapadman's brothers came out against Murugan and were killed. His sons came out and were killed. By the end of the fifth day the demon was alone.

Even then Murugan gave him one more chance. He showed Surapadman his true form, the whole universe inside a single body, and the demon looked at it, and understood whom he was fighting.

"I see who you are," said Surapadman. "I will not bow."

On the sixth day he went into the sea and became a tree, a mango tree so huge that its roots were in the deep and its branches darkened the sky, its leaves thrashing in the wind.

Murugan, mounted now, took his mother's Vel and threw it. It went through the trunk of the mango tree and split it, top to bottom, into two.

The two halves did not fall. They rose up out of the water, changed. One was a peacock and the other a cock, and they flew at Murugan to fight him still.

He did not kill them. He forgave them.

"Be with me," he said. "Always."

The peacock he took as the bird he rides. The cock he put on his banner, where it crows over his armies. The demon who had wanted to be above the gods carries a god for ever, and the enemy who would not bow announces his victory.

The gods came out of their prison. Indra was so glad that he gave Murugan his own daughter, Deivanai, as his wife. And the town on the shore where the war was won was given a new name, Jayantipuram, the city of victory.

Every year, in the Tamil month of Aippasi, in October or November, people come to Tiruchendur and stay six days. Many of them fast, one day for every day of the war. The war is not only outside, the temple says; the three demons Murugan killed are the three things in a person that keep them from God.

On the sixth evening the war comes to the sand. Surapadman is carried out before the sea in his changing shapes, one head after another, and the image of Murugan comes out to meet him. The crowds on the beach are huge. The demon is struck down, and the cry goes up. This is the Soorasamharam, the destruction of Sura. The next day the temple celebrates the god's wedding to Deivanai.

The shore temple has another story about the sea, a much later one.

In 1648 Dutch sailors, at war with the Portuguese along this coast, occupied the temple and left with its icons, among them the bronze six-faced Murugan, which they thought was gold. At sea a storm came up so violently that the ship was in danger. The sailors threw the icons overboard to lighten it, and sailed away without them.

The loss was reported to Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, who governed the district from Tirunelveli for the Nayak king. He had a copy made. As it was being carried to the temple, in 1653, he stopped for the night and dreamed. He would find the true icon, the dream said, in the sea, where a lime was floating and a kite was circling overhead. He took boats out, found the lime and the bird, and brought the old image up out of the water.