What is Thaipusam Festival?
Thaipusm is the festival celebrated by the Tamil community on the full moon month. It is celebrated by the whole Tamil people community in the month of January and February which is residing in Singapore and Malaysia. It has created from two words Thai and Pusam. This festival is mainly dedicated to Hindu god Murugan the son of Shiva and parvati. On this day lord parvati has ordered her son to destroy the demon army. This day is celebrated as the victory of good things against bad evils.
History of Thai pusam Festival
Read about Thaipusam Festival
This festival has marked the symbol of atonement along penance in Hindu community in Malaysia. This festival begins in Kuala Lumpur and proceeds till Batu caves. Before beginning of procession murti is cleaned and adorned. On the day of festival Murti is placed on the bullock which is drawn to chariot and even head towards Batu caves. This silver chariot tower is about 7 meters above the ground and the totally journey taken for this goes to 9 hours.
How to celebrate Thaipusam Festival
On this great day, the devotees of lord murugan offered them fruits and vegetables of mainly orange and yellow color and even they used to wear the clothes of the same color. Devotees may also carry milk, water along with fruits on their shoulder and tribute all these things to Murugan temples. They build a bamboo structure which is covered and decorated with the cloth along with the feathers of peacock. This is called Kavadi. On this day thousands of coconuts are thrown on the street and many devotees also carried wooden steel yokes along metal hooks into their bodies. These devotes have more faith in god as they don’t bear any pain and discomfort while using it.
Devotes have to climb up to 272 steps for batu caves. Before moving for this journey they used to take bath near the Batu River which is also situated nearby. In temples priest used to sprinkle ashes to the devotees and then they remove the steel hooks from the body. After removing these steel hooks, it is the miracle of the lord that no bloods and scars are seen for this.