Even as controversy continues over the lighting of the Deepam atop Thirupparankundram, another hill in the Madurai district presents a markedly different picture. On the evening of Karthigai, Perumal Malai, a small hillock on the city’s outskirts, witnessed a quiet celebration. At its foothills, residents gathered in a festive atmosphere, seemingly untouched by the tensions surrounding Thirupparankundram.
Karthigai, a Tamil month falling roughly between mid-November and mid-December, culminates on the full moon day with the lighting of lamps, a practice observed primarily by Tamil communities and some Malayalis. The ritual of lighting lamps atop hills carries varied meanings across communities, rooted in long-standing cultural traditions and ancient beliefs, rather than being confined solely to religious practice.
To understand the significance of Karthigai, it is useful to look at how the festival is observed across Tamil Nadu. Unlike ritual-heavy festivals such as Deepavali or Pongal, Karthigai is marked primarily by the lighting of lamps in households. The festival, observed largely in south India, is closely associated with hilltop lamp-lighting, a practice around which multiple mythological explanations have evolved.
The mention of Karthigai Deepam often evokes Thiruvannamalai, where an enormous lamp is lit atop the Arunachala hill, drawing devotees and ascetics in large numbers. While Thiruvannamalai is the most prominent site, several other hills across Tamil Nadu are also illuminated on the same full-moon night, including Thirupparankundram and Perumal Malai.
In Thiruvannamalai, the tradition is linked to the belief that Shiva manifested as an infinite column of fire, the jyotirlinga. However, this narrative does not extend uniformly to other hill sites. At Thirupparankundram, Karthigai worship centres on Murugan, while Perumal Malai is not associated with a single presiding deity, despite its name referring to Vishnu in the Hindu tradition.
What unites these diverse sites is the presence of ancient deepathoon or lamp pillars found atop the hills, suggesting a shared cultural practice that predates or transcends specific theological interpretations.
Tamil historians and researchers have noted that many of these hills contain rock beds and caves believed to have once sheltered Jain monks. The presence of ancient deepathoon, or lamp pillars, at these sites has led to the view that the lighting of lamps may have originated as a commemorative practice, possibly in memory of these ascetics.
Pandit Iyothee Das, the Tamil scholar and social reformer, offered a Buddhist interpretation of Karthigai. In his account, a Buddhist monk discovered that castor (amanakku) seeds could be used to produce lamp oil and introduced this practice to a king, who then lit a lamp atop Annamalai, now known as Thiruvannamalai. Iyothee Das argued that the remembrance of this event later evolved into the Karthigai festival.
Together, these narratives suggest that Karthigai, and the lighting of lamps on hilltops, may have originated as acts of remembrance rather than as expressions of a single religious tradition. Across Tamil Nadu, the festival continues to be observed on multiple hills, each shaped by its own local history and cultural memory.
Although the lighting of the Deepam is the central ritual of Karthigai, celebrations near Velaripatti, at the foothills of Perumal Malai also known locally as Muna Malai or Aandi Malai took on the character of a village carnival. Devotees from several villages and communities around Madurai gathered at the site. The approach to the foothills was lined with food stalls, ice-cream vendors and toy sellers, lending the occasion a festive air.
Among the rituals observed was a large mound of sand, built up by devotees who brought sand and salt and added them to the heap as an offering. The mound, symbolically echoing the hill itself, became an object of worship. This was followed by rituals centred on a natural rock identified as a local deity, around which a simple plinth had been constructed. Local saints conducted the pooja, after which devotees lit small oil lamps before the shrine.
The rituals were marked by visible displays of emotion and devotion. After prayers, devotees moved to a nearby stream, sprinkling its water over their heads as a form of purification. Some had their heads shaved as an offering to the deity. Together, the sand mound and the rock shrine appeared to represent the hill in symbolic form. A lamp was also lit atop the hill on the eve of Karthigai.
The deity worshipped here is referred to simply through the term malai meaning hill in Tamil. The name Muna Malai, in which muna denotes “before,” is locally interpreted as a reference to ancestors or those who came earlier. The rituals did not invoke Hindu deities such as Shiva or Murugan, nor did they follow formalised Brahmanical practices involving Vedic chants or elaborate rites. Instead, residents themselves served as poosaris (priests), setting these observances apart from those at sites such as Thirupparankundram or Thiruvannamalai on the same day.
The rituals observed at this hill included the offering of sand and salt, ritual bathing in stream water, the bursting of crackers, and, in some cases, the shaving of hair. Devotees displayed a deep emotional attachment to the deity, which is inseparable from the hill itself. Several of these practices closely resemble customs associated with death rituals, including purification rites and acts of renunciation.
When read alongside the earlier understanding of hilltop Deepam lighting as a commemorative practice, these parallels suggest that the festival may also function as a form of ancestral remembrance. In this interpretation, the hill becomes a symbolic presence of those who came before, and the lighting of the Deepam an act of memory rather than worship in a strictly theological sense.
As these observations continue to unfold, historian and researcher Stalin Rajangam has pointed to another significant site not far from the foothills of Perumal Malai: a megalithic burial ground located several kilometres away. Reaching the site requires traversing a grove and navigating narrow paths marked by trenches, dense vegetation and thorny undergrowth, often with guidance from local shepherds familiar with the terrain.
The site itself contains clusters of megaliths or large standing stones arranged in circular formations, marking ancient burial grounds. Megaliths of varying sizes are present, with massive stone slabs, dating back millennia, used as grave markers. Such stone circles and dolmen structures bear striking similarities to burial practices documented in parts of Europe, Africa and Asia, placing this site within a broader global pattern of prehistoric funerary architecture.
Despite Madurai district being home to well-known archaeological sites such as Keeladi, these megalithic remains have received comparatively little attention or conservation. Scattered across the adjacent sandy plains are large earthen vessels partially exposed above the soil. These are not ordinary pots but burial urns.
In the Tamil context, these burial urns are known as Muthumakkal Thazhi, a funerary practice associated primarily with the Iron Age, roughly between 1000 BCE and 300 BCE, and found in parts of ancient Tamil Nadu and southern India. At this site, the urns remain visibly exposed, with new ones discernible even to casual visitors.
The site has been documented in Perungarkaala Eemakaadu, a Tamil-language study authored by scholars Ma. Paramasivan and Re. Govindaraj, which examines the area through an archaeological lens. The coexistence of living ritual practices bearing echoes of funerary customs alongside an ancient megalithic burial landscape at the same hill base presents a striking, if unsettling, convergence.
As noted earlier, this hill bears Jain remnants, a feature common to several hills in the Madurai region. It is also known locally as Aandi Malai, with aandi referring to a monk or ascetic in Tamil. The surrounding landscape includes Yaanaimalai, Alagamalai, Keelavalavu, Karugalakudi, Arittapatti and Meenakshipuram. These sites have been recognised for their historical and Jain associations.
In villages at the foothills of these hills, local customs continue to reflect this legacy. Oral traditions suggest that when residents fall ill or are injured, the hill and particularly Yaanaimalai is worshipped, pointing to a belief in the healing or protective power associated with the landscape. Such practices reinforce the idea that these hills were once associated with ascetics, healers or monks whose lives and deaths left a lasting imprint on local memory.
Viewed together, three overlapping cultural layers emerge: the living ritual practices observed at Velaripatti, the presence of a megalithic burial site at the hill’s base, and the dense belt of Jain archaeological remains in the region. Read in conjunction, they suggest that the custom of lighting Deepams atop hills may have originated as a form of remembrance for the dead. The deepathoon, the hill (malai), and associated rituals resemble elements of ancient funerary traditions or practices that have endured over millennia, embedded in geography, folklore and the worship of local deities.
(Hailing from Madurai, the author is a literature enthusiast currently studying at Azim Premji University. Views expressed are author’s own)