The story of the war god of Hindu Mythology is fascinating for many reasons. To begin with, his commonest name, Skanda, has been almost forgotten today after having been in worship for over two millennia. The many interpretations, the multiple origin stories and the wildly conflicting accounts of his life and exploits that are found all over India are, in a sense, reflective of the process of Hinduism itself. Under the vast umbrella named for convenience, Hinduism, shelter a multitude of faiths and sects and philosophies. Skanda's popularity, his absorption into the official pantheon as opposed to his previous folk status, and the sudden decline in his all-India popularity to once again being a local area god, are all typical stages of this sheltering process.

Skanda began his existence at a very early stage of Indian history. He seems to have been a popular war god who lived on forested hills, was fond of hunting and fighting and with an appetite for blood sacrifices. He was young, handsome and a fire-eating, spear-wielding bravo. This basic template went by many names in different parts of the country. In Maharashtra he was called Khandoba, and in vast areas of the south of India, the god was known as Malaikilavon, the Lord of the hills in ancient Tamil. His other name was Murugan. Indeed that is what he is still known as, and worshipped, where his worship has survived. The Indologist Hardy had a theory that Murugan worship under different names was popular in the folk religion of the North of India too. He was supported in this by Parpola, who spent a long time attempting to decipher the script of the Indus valley. Parpola came to the conclusion that Murugan was a deity of the Indus valley culture, and that the very name Murugan is to be found in the language! While this is not a popularly accepted view, the reason it could be put forward is the uncontested antiquity of Skanda worship. If the Indus civilization theory proves true, then Skanda is at least five thousand years old. In Maharashtra the assimilative forces of High Culture could not force Khandoba out so easily and he remained an independent god, albeit recognized as an avatar of Shiva.

As long as Vedic India was satisfied with its fire sacrifices and endless liturgies, it turned up its nose at popular manifestations of belief. But with the shock of Buddhism and Jainism forcing them to compete for the allegience of the faithful, the hitherto despised geographical and folk gods were absorbed into the mainstream in an act of instinctive wisdom. It is my belief that the entire Pauranic worldview is an offshoot of this process. The faith had shifted and new gods were reigning, but the guardians of the faith needed to reassure people that nothing had really changed. Hence the vast mythological outpourings that ensued. These stories were designed to fit the newly popular gods - (to the priests not to the people!) - into a nominally Vedic and Upanishadic framework. At about the sixth century, the situation stabilized and most of the mythology was firmly in place, though perhaps not formally written down as yet. The great gods dominant in the Indian mind were Shiva, Vishnu and his avatars, Brahma, The Great Goddess, Surya the sun, and Skanda. Ganapati and Laxmi were fighting a battle they would win to become more popular, but these were early days and no money was being placed on them. By the twelfth century however, Brahma was nowhere on the scene, Surya's worship was seeing a deceptive flourish in art and architecture before it would be catastrophically extinguished and Skanda was retreating to enclaves of worship in the states of Orissa, Bengal and parts of south India, predominantly Tamil Nadu. By then however, Skanda had been accepted as the son of Shiva, and his myths had become an enduring part of the Indian imagination.

It is interesting that most of the myths of Skanda deal with the vexed question of his parentage. No other figure in mythology has so many claimants for that status. Success indeed has many fathers, and in Skanda's case mothers too - eight in the most popular version the origin story! The many claimants for his parentage indicate his immense importance for rival sects, who needed the hill warrior's popularity to bolster their numbers. The Ganapati worshippers alone took an antagonistic stand when it was their time to bask in the sun, they never could forgive Skanda his head start in popularity. The Jains and Buddhists had no stories about Skanda as they did about the Vedic deities; he was too violent for them. The Mahabharatha seems to have the first version of his origin, though the Ramayana has a little section that covers familiar ground too.

The Mahabharatha version tries to position Skanda within the ambit of Vedic Deities, unlike the other versions, which are Pauranic in nature. As usual the devas or gods were under threat from demonic forces. A new hero was required to deal with the problem, as the demons were immune to the old powers that be. Agni, God of Fire, goes to some great sages, to ask them to perform a sacrifice that will give him such a son. They are immersed in some sacrifice of their own and Agni has to wait. Being impatient by nature and of a fiery temperament, he pays more attention to the beautiful wives of the rishis, and is seized with desire for them. He makes obvious overtures, which they ignore. This however, is all the opportunity needed for a minor female goddess called Svaha, who has been lusting in her heart after Agni. She assumes the forms of the wives and seduces Agni six times in succession. Each time his fiery seed is too hot for her to retain within herself, so she carries it to Mount Sveta and places it in a golden pot in a place well concealed by Sara reeds. Within this obviously symbolic womb the seed is born as Subrahmanya or Skanda. In six days he is fully-grown, and he has six heads for each one of the forms assumed by Svaha. On the sixth day this young hero is presented all the weapons of the gods and he routs the demons in an exciting battle. Thereupon he becomes the permanent warlord of the gods. He also gets Svaha married to Agni and decrees that all offerings into the sacred fire be accompanied by the pronouncing of her name. This is a very obvious later interpolation by a morally scandalized writer. The incantation of "Svaha" is as old as the Vedas and their rituals. This version still tries to proclaim the (now in doubt) superiority of the sacrificial ritual - even peripheral events round a sacrifice becomes cosmically significant. The ambivalent and at times openly hedonistic sexuality of the story becomes a motif of all later Skanda myths. Skanda is described variously as an extremely promiscuous young man, a protector of young women from abduction, a lifelong celibate, a happily married man, or a dandy verging on being a rake. Obviously the god served as a proxy for all the attitudes to sexuality that ever became popular in India. In the south he is married, with Sena and Valli as his two wives. That really does not say anything, as Sena means army and Valli is a personification of the Vel or lozenge shaped spear that he uses. They represent his essential nature as a warrior more than any real human women do. In Orissa and Bengal there is an interesting folk version as to why Karttikeya or Skanda is a bachelor. His mother, Parvati, wife of Shiva asked him what kind of girl he wanted to marry. His reply was, "A girl who is as beautiful as you." Appalled at the obvious Oedipal connotations of this statement she 'blessed' him with perpetual celibacy.