I arrived to India on the 12th of December, el dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe in Mexico, my home country. On this day hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all of Mexico make it to the shrine of the Guadalupe in what is probably the most importat pilgrim site in the Americas. In India this type of mass pilgrimage is much more common. Tiruvannamalai an otherwise quiet town in southern India, becomes a busy pilgrimage place every full moon of December on the Tamil month of Karthigai.
By the time we arrived in Tiruvannamalai it was already night and as we approched the town on a crowded Indian bus full of eager pilgrims we could see people lighting candles outside their doorsteps and on their windows. A fellow pilgrim who could speak some broken english explained that today was the day of the full moon, the fist day of the lighting of the fire atop Mount Arunachala the sacred mountain of Shiva. To mark this ocation and during the next 10 days everyone lights candles outside their houses beleived to scare the evil away.
We waren't sure exactly what this fire atop the mountain was but as we approached the mountain we could clearly see a flame atop a large hill. This was mount Arunachala. "Most auspicious time for arriving here" said the gentleman from Chennai sitting next to us on the bus. He had come here to walk around the mountain, a total of 14km which would in no doubt take him all night.
The following is taken frmo the web and explains more about the significance of the Mountain and the Fire...
"Deepam - The Symbol of Lord Arunachala
History has is that the practice came into existence following a dispute between Lord Vishnu and Lord Brahma over who was the superior of the two after the some hindrance to their attempts to gauge their strength, the two prayed to Lord Siva for his Grace.
Their test was to find the top and the bottom of a blazing mount which was actually Siva. Lord Siva blessed lord Vishnu and Lord Brahma and said that he would appear as a Jothi (flame) on top of the hill. It is to perpetuate this event that the flame is lit on top of the holy hill during the month of Karthigai (November - December).
This festival begins in the Uthiradam (Star) day in Karthigai and winds up with the Bharani Deepam lit in the early hours of the tenth day. The Deepam is lit at dusk, coinciding with a Full Moon. The Deepam can be seen even from a distance of 45 Km. Real image of lord Arunachala is viewed in the appearance of "Agni". This is celebrated every year as the remembrance of one of the image of lord Arunachala as fire. During the holy day, more than 10,00,000 devotees get this heavenly worship of Lord."
The pictures of the fire is of the lightng og the giant gee lamp atop the mount after I finnaly decided to go and see for myself. I ended up staying the night up there with some tamil freinds, shiva, ganesh and om..... enjoy.
