Skanda Janana (Śiva Purāṇa)
The Kumāra Khaṇḍa of the Rudra Saṃhitā in the Śiva Purāṇa tells how Kārttikeya was born. It describes a chain of passing on. Agni, in the form of a bird, receives the tejas of Bhagavān Śiva. Pārvatī pronounces a śāpa (curse) on all the devas’ wives and another on Agni. The tejas goes from Agni to six of the Saptarshi wives, then to Himavān, then to Gaṅgā, and finally to a forest of reeds. The child is born on Mārgaśīrsha Śukla Shashṭhī, and the six Kṛttikā women feed him and give him his name. The account is in Chapters 1 to 4.
The setting
After the holy wedding of Bhagavān Śiva and Pārvatī, the divine couple stayed at Kailāsa for a thousand divine years in close union. The devas watched from afar and grew anxious. No son had yet been born of this union, and only a son of Śiva could kill the asura Tārakāsura, whose rule was crushing the three worlds. Bhagavān Vishṇu counselled patience and faith. But the weight of Tāraka’s cruelty made the earth shake. In the end the devas gathered at Kailāsa to press their request. This is told in Chapter 1.
Agni enters and Pārvatī’s śāpas
Agni took the form of a bird, a dove or pigeon, and slipped into Śiva’s private home. There he received Śiva’s tejas, the divine seed-fire, and carried it away before Pārvatī could take it into her own body.
Pārvatī found out about the intrusion. With the full force of her śakti she pronounced two great śāpas. First, the wives of all the devas would from then on be barren, unable to bear children. Second, Agni, who had broken in and taken what was hers, would from then on devour everything, taking in whatever was put into him without choice. Both śāpas took effect at once across the worlds.
The devas passed the tejas among themselves and suffered unbearable heat. The tejas was meant for no one but Pārvatī herself, and no deva could bear it for long. On Śiva’s instruction they threw it out. Nārada guided Agni to leave it in a suitable place. This is told in Chapter 2.
The Saptarshi wives and the passing on of the tejas
Nārada told Agni to take the tejas to the bathing ghāṭ at dawn in the month of Māgha. This is the holy dawn of Māgha, when a bath has the highest puṇya (merit). Six of the seven Saptarshi wives came to bathe. The seventh, Arundhatī, the wife of Vasishṭha, did not come. At Agni’s sacred fire on the ghāṭ, the tejas entered the bodies of the six women through its great heat.
These six great women could not hold the tejas long either. It burned inside them as a heat they could not bear. They could bear it no longer, and they placed the tejas on Himavān, the mountain king, who had offered to take it. Himavān in turn placed it in the holy Gaṅgā. Gaṅgā carried it for a time, and then gently laid it in a śaravaṇa, a thicket of reed grass (śara), on a holy hillside. This is told in Chapter 2.
Birth in the reed forest
On the auspicious tithi of Mārgaśīrsha Śukla Shashṭhī, the sixth bright day of the month of Mārgaśīrsha, the child was born from inside the reed thicket, full of radiance.
The six Kṛttikā women, the six stars of the Kṛttikā nakshatra, came to the place and found the wonderful child. Each of the six took one of his six faces to feed, and the child drank from all six at once. Because the Kṛttikā women nursed him, he received his chief name Kārttikeya, the son of the Kṛttikās. This is told in Chapter 2.
Kārttikeya’s first deeds
The great ṛshi Viśvāmitra came to the child in the reed forest. The child asked him to be his purohita, his priest for rites. Viśvāmitra accepted this unusual request with honour.
Indra tested the child’s nature and struck him with the vajra. The vajra did the child no harm. Instead, the blows on Kārttikeya’s body brought three new beings out of the points of impact: Śākha, Viśākha and Naigama. These divine beings were born when the force of the vajra met Kārttikeya’s own body of tejas.
The Kṛttikā women then took Kārttikeya to Badarikāśrama. Afterwards he was brought to the assembly of the devas. There he sat in complete silence, beyond the grasp of the ordinary understanding of the devas. This is told in Chapter 3.
The search and the reunion
Pārvatī asked Bhagavān Śiva about the tejas she had not received into her own body. Śiva gathered the devas and questioned each one about what had happened. One after another they told their part: Bhūmi, Agni, Parvata, Gaṅgā, Vāyu, Sūrya, Candra, Jaladhi, Sandhyā, Rātri and Dina. Each gave one link in the chain, until the child’s place was known.
Śiva sent Nandīśvara as his own messenger to the home of the Kṛttikā women. Nandīśvara arrived and gave the invitation. Kārttikeya heard the message and agreed to return to Kailāsa. His meeting with his divine parents, and the formal installation that followed, are told in the Kumāra Abhisheka episode. This is told in Chapter 4.
Other accounts of the same birth
The Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa tells this birth with this chain: Śiva’s retas (seed) goes to Agni, then to Gaṅgā, and the child is born in the śaravaṇa.
The Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa places the birth in the Śaravaṇa on Udayagiri, after the tejas passes from Agni to the river Kuṭilā.
Sources
- Śiva Purāṇa, Rudra Saṃhitā, Kumāra Khaṇḍa, Chapters 1–4
- Chapter 1: the setting and the devas’ petition
- Chapter 2: Agni, Pārvatī’s śāpas, the Saptarshi wives, Himavān, Gaṅgā and the birth
- Chapter 3: Kārttikeya’s first deeds
- Chapter 4: the search and the reunion
- Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, account of Skanda’s birth
- Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa, account of Kārttikeya’s birth