“5 things to know about Murugan”, Hindu American, December 23, 2025
“He is the cherished hero of the Tamil people
India is made up of a wide spectrum of peoples going back to the ancient period, with roughly 4,400 tribes having populated the subcontinent. Though most eventually became part of the Vedic Aryas, whose metropolitan networks wove a common thread amidst their unique teachings and practices, many did so through their own sacred lens, retaining the diversity of the land’s different cultures.
Of these cultures, some of the more enduring and significant have been those of Tamil Nadu, which borders the Indian Ocean as the country’s southernmost state. Here, amidst the dance of traditions that make the Hindu Dharmas what they are today, ancestral customs are vast and varied, sharing a regional vocabulary that ties them all together. Indeed, an ecosystem all its own, it thrives by those who sustain it — their expressions flowing in a realm of icons, rooted in the classic works of Tamil literature.
According to the Tolkappiyam, the oldest surviving treatise on Tamil grammar and poetics, the region’s principal divinities corresponded to specific divisions of the natural world. Varunan presided over the seashore, Ventan over agriculture, Korravai over arid terrain, and Mayon over forests. And while each garnered respective followings as their legends took greater shape over time, it was Ceyon whose devotional stature rose above all others…..”
Read full article at hinduamerican.org
