VEL VEL Festival

What is Vel Vel? The root of this is Hindu mythology, Indian gods have many incarnations and one such is that or Kartikeya, he is also known as Murugan. He is the son of Parvathi and Shiva and the brother of Ganesha. Murugan is considered as the god of war especially in Southern India. Murugan is popular in other countries such as Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Malaysia. Basically in places where there had been major migration of Tamil population from India. Indian mythology has a god assigned for every major activity similarly Murugan is considered as the “War God”. Considering the vastness of Indian mythology it’s not accurate to declare Murugan as the only God associated with war but can be safely said one of the many especially considered by the Tamil population. Murugan is always depicted with a long spear in his hand and this is known as a “Vel” in the Tamil language. This as per mythology was gifted to him by his mother Parvathi so that he could use this as a battle weapon against Asura’s. Keep in mind that Asura was not just a single person but a clan who were at constant war with the gods. There was once a fierce war between Murugan and Soorapadman from the Asura Clan. Murugan used his divine spear (Vel) to stop Soorapadman from evading eminent defeat when he disguised himself as a mango tree. Murugan used his divine spear to rip apart the mango tree into two halves. Each of the halves turned into a peacock and a rooster. Thus we can always see Kartikeya using peacock as his vahana (animals or birds used by gods and goddesses as a means of transportation). The rooster became the flag symbol of Murugan. As a war cry of many Tamil rulers, they used the words “Vetrivel! Veeravel!” which translates to “Victorious Vel, Courageous Vel“. Thus it’s common to hear this phrase during “Vel Vel” during this festival which is a shorter version of “Vetrivel! Veeravel!” . .. COLLECTED FROM GOOGLE .. . . . ©𝐏𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢 𝐑𝐚𝐲 . 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 : Nikon b700 . #calture #festival #velvel #velvelfestival #pindle #pindlekolkata #pindleindia