Lord Murugan

In Tamil households he is rarely only in the mandir. He is on the dashboard of the car, on the shelf above the shop counter, at the corner of the desk where the work actually happens. Murugan tends to be the deity people keep within reach rather than the one they keep formally, and that is worth knowing before you buy anything, because it decides the size you should be looking at more than any rule does.

He is Kartikeya or Karthikeya in the north, Subramanya or Subrahmanya in Karnataka and Andhra, Skanda in Sanskrit, and Shanmukha where the six faces are meant. Tamil devotees say Murugan, Muruga or Velan. Bala Murugan is the child form and Dandayudhapani the ascetic form at Palani. One deity throughout, and the name a family uses tells you roughly where they are from.

What we make in him, and what we do not

One form: the vel and the mayil, the spear held upright with the peacock at its foot, in 999 silver plate, at roughly three and a half inches and at five. Both sit under three thousand. That is the whole of it, and it is a small piece rather than a mandir centrepiece.

We do not have a brass Murugan in stock at the moment and there is no marble one. If what you want is a large murti for a full home mandir, or a piece that will be bathed daily, this is not it, and it is better to know that now than after a parcel arrives. Solid brass is what we cast for several other deities and it is the right material for a murti that gets an abhishekam, but Murugan is not among them today.

What size Murugan idol for a car dashboard

This is how most people search for him in India, ahead of home, pooja and gift, and the answer is smaller than buyers expect. Read the listed size as height, and remember that on a vel piece most of that height is spear: the blade stands well above the peacock. Three and a half inches sits on a dashboard without climbing into the view over the bonnet. Five inches is already a desk, counter or shelf piece in most cars.

Fix it down rather than resting it. A dashboard is sloped, warm and constantly vibrating, and anything loose on it travels. A pad of putty or an adhesive disc under the base is enough. Keep it clear of the airbag line and out of the driver's sightline, and take it in if the car is going to stand all day in May sun, since a dashboard gets hotter than anything else in the vehicle.

The rest of our dashboard sized work is other deities, for the household that puts a Ganesha in one car and something else in the other.

The vel and the peacock are where a casting shows its quality

Two things identify him and nothing else has to. The vel is the spear his mother Parvati gave him, and in Tamil devotion it stands for the insight that cuts through ignorance, which is why devotees carry a vel on foot pilgrimage rather than an image of the god himself. The mayil, the peacock, is his mount. Shown together they read as Murugan to anyone Tamil without a face being modelled at all, which is why so many Vel Mayil pieces, ours included, are the spear in a raised hand with the peacock beside it and no figure.

That is also where quality is visible. The shaft is thin, the blade is a leaf shape that usually carries an Om or the Saravanabhava letters worked into it, and the peacock's crest and tail are the finest relief on the piece. A soft casting loses those first and the whole thing goes vague. Look at the tip of the vel and the edge of the tail feathers in the photographs before you look at the size or the price.

How a silver plated Murugan is made, and what takes the plating off

A resin core, a layer of copper over it, then silver electroplated on top. The copper is the part worth explaining, because resin does not conduct and cannot be plated directly, so the copper is the layer the silver keys onto and the thing that makes the surface even. It is also why the piece is light, why the detail holds at three and a half inches, and why water is the one thing it will not survive.

So dust it with a dry soft cloth and use nothing else. No metal polish, no acidic paste, no lemon and salt, no tamarind, no water standing on the base. Every one of those is correct for solid brass and every one of them strips plating. A plated piece that has gone dull usually comes back with the cloth alone. Every piece is checked at our own warehouse before it goes out.

Can a Murugan idol be kept at home

Yes, and the question gets asked often enough to deserve a straight answer rather than a reassuring one. We went looking for a text that keeps Murugan to temples and could not find one. He is kept in Tamil homes as routinely as Ganesha is kept in every other kind of house, and the six hill temples are where people go on pilgrimage, not the only place he is permitted to be.

Where the hesitation usually comes from is the Palani form, Dandayudhapani, who stands as a renunciate with a staff and nothing else, having given away everything he had. Some families feel a form that renounced a household does not belong inside one. That is a sincere position rather than a superstition, and the tradition already answers it: keep a different form. Bala Murugan the child, Murugan with Valli and Devasena, or the vel and the peacock on their own, which is the form we make and the least loaded of the three.

Which direction, and which day

The northeast is the quadrant the vastu tradition associates with a household shrine, with the murti facing west or east so that the person praying faces east or north. Past that point the rules get specific in ways that are custom rather than scripture, and families who are equally certain will tell you opposite things. If the shrine is already set, put him in it and stop measuring.

Tuesday is the day most commonly kept for Murugan and some families keep Friday. Two other markers matter more than the weekday. Krittika, the nakshatra his name Kartikeya comes from, falls once a lunar month and is kept as Krittigai, with Aadi Krittigai in the Tamil month of Aadi the largest of them. Sashti, the sixth day of each fortnight, is the other, and many devotees fast on it.

Palani, Thiruchendur and the six abodes

Six temples in Tamil Nadu make up the Arupadai Veedu, the six abodes: Palani, Swamimalai, Thiruchendur, Thiruthani, Pazhamudircholai and Thirupparankundram. Palani takes the most visitors, and it is the temple behind the question people actually type, which is what a Murugan idol is made of. The murti there is held to be navapashanam, a compound of nine minerals prepared by the siddhar Bogar, which is why the abhishekam liquid and the panchamirtham from Palani are taken as medicine in a way they are not anywhere else.

It is worth naming that as belief rather than as chemistry. The composition is not published, the murti has never been publicly tested, and what is honestly known is that generations have taken the abhishekam from it as a remedy. What it means for a buyer is simple. Nothing sold to a household anywhere is navapashanam, ours included, and a piece offered to you as navapashanam is not what it says it is.

Thaipusam and Skanda Sashti

Thaipusam falls in the Tamil month of Thai, in January or February, on the full moon when Pusam is the ruling star. It is the day devotees carry the kavadi, and it is kept as strongly by Tamil families in Malaysia and Singapore as in Tamil Nadu, which is why Batu Caves and Palani look much the same that week.

Skanda Sashti runs six days in Aippasi, October or November, closing on the sixth day of the waxing moon, and many observe it as a fast. Either is the natural moment to bring a new one into a house, as is a griha pravesh, a new shop or a new car.

Giving a Murugan

He is close to a default gift inside a Tamil household and a poor guess outside one, because elsewhere he is a deity people respect rather than one they keep. Within it he fits a griha pravesh, a new vehicle, or a boy's upanayanam, where the family's own deity beats the generic choice every time and almost no guest thinks of it.

Everything ships in our own packaging, which is made to be opened rather than merely to survive the journey. That counts here more than it looks, because a good share of these are handed over in front of a room. For numbers, see corporate gifting or send the count and the date through the bulk enquiry page.

His father is Shiva and his brother Ganesha, and in a South Indian house Balaji is the other likely resident. For the lamp, the thali and the chowki that go around a murti, see pooja essentials. The rest of the plated work is in gold and silver plated idols, and the wider pantheon is in god idols and figurines.