Murugan's banner carries a rooster, the seval kodi.
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In the Kanda Puranam, the other half of Surapadman's tree.
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It gives him one of his names: Sevarkodiyon, the one whose banner is the rooster.
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Arunagirinathar's Seval Virutham, in the app's library, is addressed to it.
If the peacock carries Murugan, the rooster announces him. It flies on his banner, the seval kodi, and it is the second half of the story of Surapadman: when the vel split his tree, the other half became this bird.
A rooster's work is to call before dawn, and devotional reading has made that its meaning here, the one who wakes others. The adversary who once kept the world in darkness now calls out the coming of light.
At many Murugan temples a flag is raised on the flagstaff at the start of a great festival, and the festival's days are counted from it. Where a festival begins with a flag, it is worth being there for it.
Arunagirinathar's Seval Virutham, in the library, is a sequence of verses addressed to the rooster.
The same closing lines of the Kanda Sashti Kavasam that praise the peacock-rider also praise the rooster banner, so the two halves of the defeated Surapadman are remembered together in one of the most recited Murugan prayers. Neither bird is ever shown as a trophy. Both are companions.
WHAT THIS RESTS ON
Tamil Kanda Puranam
The rooster as the other half of Surapadman's tree comes from the Kanda Puranam. Reading the rooster as the call to wake is devotional interpretation.
Given its shape in the Tamil Kanda Puranam of Kachiyappa Sivachariar, a work distinct from the Sanskrit Skanda Purana traditions.