ವೈಕಾಸಿ ವಿಶಾಕಂ | Vaikasi Visakam

Vaikasi Visakam is the day of the nakshatra Vishakha, Visakam in Tamil, in the Tamil solar month of Vaikasi, when the sun stands in Vrishabha, in May or June. It falls close to the full moon of that month. In Tamil Nadu it is kept as the birth of Murugan, the son of Shiva known in Karnataka as Subrahmanya, and in Sri Vaishnava homes and temples as the birth star of Nammalvar, one of the twelve Alvars.

The birth of Murugan

The Kanda Puranam tells that the asuras Surapadman, Simhamukha and Taraka had won boons from Shiva that left the gods helpless before them; Taraka could be killed only by a son of Shiva. When the gods appealed to him, Shiva took on five more faces, and from each of his six faces came a spark. Vayu and then Agni carried the sparks and placed them in the Ganga, and the river bore them to the Saravana pond, where they became six infants. The six Krittikas nursed them, and Parvati, taking them up together, made them one child with six faces. Hence his names Shanmukha and Arumugan, the six-faced, Saravanabhava, born in the Saravana, and Kartikeya, nursed by the Krittikas. Vaikasi Visakam is kept as the day of that birth. The victory over Surapadman for which he was born is kept on another day, Skanda Shashti.

At Murugan temples the day brings abhisheka, the offering of panchamritam, the deity taken out in procession on the temple car or a vahana, and the carrying of the kavadi in fulfilment of vows. At Tiruchendur, the shore temple, pilgrims bathe in the sea before going in for darshan, and milk pots are carried to the shrine.

Nammalvar

Nammalvar was born at Tirukurugur, now Alwarthirunagari, near the Tamiraparani river in the far south of Tamil Nadu, and the Sri Vaishnava tradition keeps his thirunakshatram, his birth star, on Vaikasi Visakam. The story is that as an infant he neither moved nor took food, that his parents left him at the temple of Adinatha there, and that he sat in meditation in the hollow of a tamarind tree for sixteen years, until he spoke for the first time in answer to a question from Madhurakavi Alvar, who became his disciple. His four works, of which the Tiruvaymoli of 1,102 verses is the longest, belong to the Four Thousand Divya Prabandham. A tamarind tree in the temple precincts at Alwarthirunagari is held to be the one he sat in.

Which day Anudina gives

Vaikasi Visakam is fixed by a nakshatra and a solar month, not by a tithi. Anudina gives the day on which Vishakha is running at sunrise while the sun is in Vrishabha. If Vishakha holds the sunrise on two days running, the first is taken. The moon goes round the twenty-seven nakshatras in a little over twenty-seven days, and a solar month is longer, so Vishakha can come twice in one Vaikasi; when it does, Anudina keeps the one nearer the full moon. If the star begins after one sunrise and ends before the next, so that it holds no sunrise at all, the day on which it begins is taken. For 2027 Anudina gives 20 May. Vaikasi Visakam appears in Anudina under the South Indian custom, and for readers on the North Indian custom when festivals of other regions are shown.

In Karnataka, and related days

Karnataka reckons the great days of Subrahmanya by the lunar calendar, above all Subrahmanya Shashti in Margashira. Vaikasi Visakam belongs to the Tamil solar calendar and is kept chiefly in Tamil Nadu and by Tamil communities elsewhere. The other Tamil star festivals of the year include Thai Poosam, a Murugan day in Thai, and Panguni Uthiram, the day of the divine weddings in Panguni.