Karthigai Deepam Festival of 2025 at Arunachaleswarar temple,Thiruvannamalai, TN: A fascinating festival

Navrang India November 29, 2025

Happy Karthigai Deepam,2025 txts.ms

The Karthigai Deepam festival, one of the oldest lamp-lighting traditions mentioned in ancient Tamil works such as Ahananuru and Tolkappiyam, will be celebrated in November–December 2025 with great devotion across Tamil Nadu. Considered a festival of light and spiritual awakening, Karthigai Deepam falls during the Tamil month of Karthigai when the Bharani or Krittika star dominates the sky. For Tamil Shaivites and Muruga devotees alike, the festival embodies the victory of divine light over darkness, ego and ignorance.

Arunachaleswar temple,TN commons.wikimedia.org

God Shiva and Goddess Parvati hindu-blog.com

blog.onlineprasad.com

The grandest celebration takes place at Thiruvannamalai, the sacred town dominated by the Arunachaleswarar Temple and the towering Arunachala Hill. According to the Skanda Purana, Lord Shiva manifested here as an infinite pillar of fire to humble Brahma and Vishnu who were quarrelling over supremacy. This cosmic column, without beginning or end, came to be worshipped as Arunachala. In remembrance of this fiery theophany, the Maha Deepam is lit every year on the hilltop.

The ten-day festival in 2025 will begin well before the main Deepam day, with the temple conducting daily processions of the utsava murtis around the car streets. Each day the deity appears in a different alankaram, drawing lakhs of devotees. On the morning of the Deepam day, the priests of the temple light the Bharani Deepam, made from five sacred lamps symbolising the five elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether. This flame is considered the source from which the Maha Deepam must be ignited.

By evening, the massive cauldron placed atop the 2668-ft Arunachala Hill will be filled with several thousand kilograms of ghee. A huge wick, about 300 metres long, prepared from special cloth, is arranged inside the pot. The traditional community of Nagarathar community of  Chetti Nadu, entrusted for generations with this sacred duty, carries the cauldron up the steep hill. When the auspicious moment arrives, the flame from the Bharani Deepam is taken up and used to light the Maha Deepam. As the giant fire illuminates the summit, the entire town reverberates with “Annamalaiyarukku Haro Hara!”

Tiruvannamalai Maha Deepam emplefolks.com

Above image: Bharani Deepam consists of flame  from five different lamps symbolic of Pancha bootha - (five  essential elements) earth, air, fire, water and ether.........

Across Tamil Nadu, households mirror this sacred act by lighting rows of agal vilakkus at dusk. Lamps glow on temples, homes, balconies and streets, symbolising spiritual clarity, prosperity and the dispelling of negativity. For Murugan devotees, the day is doubly auspicious as it is associated with the nurturing of the divine child by the Karthigai maidens (kannis).

In 2025, as always, Karthigai Deepam will reaffirm the Tamil tradition that divine light is the ultimate path to inner awakening and universal harmony.

https://www.oneindia.com/chennai/karthigai-deepam-2025-date-full-schedule-of-10-day-hindu-festival-in-tiruvannamalai-7926301.html

https://www.hindu-blog.com/2008/11/tiruvannamalai-maha-deepam-atop.html

https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2025/Nov/24/10-day-karthigai-deepam-festival-begins-in-tiruvannamalai-arunachaleshwar-temple-over-40-lakh-devotees-expected



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