Muruga With Bow Temples

I have posted an article on Muruga with Conch and Discus-Sangu and Chakra.

Lord Subrahmanya, Muruga is described as the God of Hills or Kurinji in Tamil Literature.

Hill means Hunters.

So ideally Lord Muruga should be wielding Bow.

But what find is the Spear, Vel, adorned by Muruga.

This could be because of the fact that Muruga was known as Skanda during the Vedic period and is one of the Major Gods mentioned in the Vedas.

I searched and found that there are indeed temples where Lord Muruga has Bow on his hands.

One temple is located near Madhrantakam, near Chennai.

Twenty six kilometres off Madurantakam in the southeast direction, is Seyyur. It lies within Kanchipuram district, also known as Valavapuri or Valavanagar or Seikaiyampathy. The origin of the village dates back to the Pallavas and Cholas. It boasts of good roads, and is on the way to Marakkanam from Chennai via the East Coast Road.

Situated in the centre of the village, the Kandaswamy temple is also midway between the Siva and Vishnu temples. The temple faces east, but the entrance to the temple faces south.

There are two prakarams. In a small sanctum sanctorum resides Lord Someswar and Goddess Meenakshi. Lord Kandaswamy, the main deity, is in an unusual form with one head and four hands, with Valli and Deivanai in a majestic standing posture. In the south-west, there is a shrine for Muthukumaraswamy, also known as Samharamurthy.

A Siva temple has several goshtams, in which the parivaara devathais, as they are called, like Vinayaka, Dakshinamurthy, Chandikeswara and others are placed, just after the sanctum sanctorum.

In this temple, one can see Muruga in five different postures – Nrutta Skandar (dancing Muruga), Brahma Sastha (created from Brahma), Balaskandar; (child Shanmuga), Sivagurunathar (as teacher to Siva) and Pulinthar (vedan, hunter).

Perhaps this is the only temple in Tamil Nadu that can boast of captivating figures in this fashion. There is an image of Kazhukundran who is said to have made elaborate changes inside the temple. For instance, he made a new temple car in 1521 A.D., especially for use during the Skanda Sashti festival.

There is another temple at Villudayanpatti near Neyveli.

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