in the hill regions associated with the beauty of Nature.3 The word Murukan itself means beauty, youth, and godhead, and the ancient Tamils associated the godhead with perennial youth and beauty reflected in Nature. Since the knowledge of God developed among them in their first habitat, the hills, their worship and theogony were coloured by the environment in which they lived. Thus they called Murukan, even in his aspect of the Supreme Being, “Lord of the hill” for probably at the time they knew only of the hills as places of habitation. At first they seem to have worshipped God as revealed in Nature. Gradually, anthropomorphism entered into their cult, for nothing is so much subject to mutation unless jealously guarded by a teaching authority, as religion. They found that the rising sun which was the nearest vestige to His greatness and glory was red, and hence they called the God too Ceeyoon.4 Since hunting was the primary and primitive occupation of the mountain tribes, they gave a spear in his hands, and called him the Spear-man or Veelan. When we examine the anthropomorphic evolution of the cult of Murukan, everything points to his having been originally and exclusively the deity of the hills. He rides the elephant, the strongest and most powerful of the animals of the hills; a bird associated with him is the peacock, a bird of the hills; among his symbols is the cock, a bird domesticated in the hills very early in history; his weapons are the spear and other tools mostly used by the hill-folk; and he is said to have married Vaḷḷi, a maid belonging to the hill-tribe. He is said to be as resplendent as the sun and burning fire, two objects more welcome in the colder climate of the hills than in the other regions. His cult is indissolubly connected with montane Nature. The spots he chooses for his habitation, or for the manifestations of his greatness and for bestowing his favours upon his clients, are places where Nature is most alluring, such as- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3 P. T. SRINIVAS IYENGAR, Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture, p. 21 ff; T. V.KALYANASUNDARANAR, Murukan or Beauty (Tm), Madras, 1946; SWAMI VEDACHALAM, The Tamilian Creed (Tm), Madras. 1941. 4 T.951. See M. S. PURNALINGAM PILLAI, Tamil India, Chapters on Religion and Philosophy, Madras, 1945. |