The Hindu Munnani had first placed the demand in 1994 when it said its members too wanted to light the lamp at the Thirupparankundram hill for Karthigai Deepam. However, that year, Justice J. Kanagaraj of the Madras High Court had, by an interim order, directed that the lamp be lit at the usual place by the temple authorities alone.
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When a row broke out over lighting of the Karthigai Deepam at the Thirupparankundram hill in Madurai 30 years ago, four Sthaneeka Bhattars of the famed Subramaniaswami Temple had testified that the lamp had been lit at the Uchipillaiyar Temple since “time immemorial”. The Bhattars conveyed this in a communication written to the temple authorities against the backdrop of a raging row over the Hindu Munnani’s demand for lighting the deepam at a different place.
The Hindu Munnani had first placed the demand in 1994 when it said its members too wanted to light the lamp at the Thirupparankundram hill for Karthigai Deepam. However, that year, Justice J. Kanagaraj of the Madras High Court had, by an interim order, directed that the lamp be lit at the usual place by the temple authorities alone. He passed a similar order the following year too.
Charge denied
In 1995, the Hindu Munnani claimed that the Moksha Deepam (in memory of departed souls) and the Karthigai Deepam were being lit at the same place. However, the Bhattars denied this charge and insisted that it was being lit at the usual place atop the building behind the Uchipillaiyar Temple. “This was not that place where Moksha Deepam used to be lit. They said they had been told by their ancestors that at no time in their living memory was the Karthigai Deepam lit in the stone ‘Deepa Sthampam’ near the Dargah atop the temple,” they said in their letter, according to a report published in The Hindu dated December 6, 1995. “They also said the Karthigai Deepam was lit this year as also in the past in the traditional place and as stipulated in Agama Sastras and in accordance with the temple custom,” the report added.
That year, Karumuthu T. Kannan, chairman of the Board of Trustees of Sri Subramaniaswami Temple, also issued a statement denying the claims of Hindu Munnani leaders that the Devasthanam was lighting the Karthigai Deepam in a place where the Moksha Deepam used to be lit. This claim “was far from true”.
Kannan, who was a well-known industrialist, said the Karthigai Deepam was lit on top of the “Deepa Sigaram” over a masonry platform erected for the purpose and this was adjacent to the Uchipillaiyar Temple. “This was the place where the Deepam was being lit by the temple authorities from times immemorial. We have to emphasise that there is no record or evidence in the temple to the contrary. The Moksha Deepam used to be lit in a place well below this site,” he said.
‘Conspicuously absent’
According to another contemporaneous report in The Hindu, people who used to throng the temple for the Karthiga festival in large numbers “were conspicuously absent this year also due to the controversy over the issue”. People from the nearby villages were seen moving about the town but the locals mostly stayed at home.
Published – December 25, 2025 10:31 pm IST
