The sage Agastya wanted two hills carried south, and he gave the task to Idumban, an asura who had become his disciple. Idumban tied the hills to either end of a pole, laid the pole across his shoulders, and walked.
Near what is now Palani he set his load down to rest. When he tried to lift it again, one hill would not move. A boy was standing on it, and the boy would not get down.
Idumban fought him and lost. In the telling his life is restored, and he asks one thing of Murugan: that he might stand guard at the foot of the hill, and that anyone who comes carrying a burden the way he carried his should be received.
That is the kavadi. A pilgrim carries a pole across the shoulders, with offerings balanced at each end, exactly in Idumban's posture. On Thaipusam the roads to Palani fill with people walking this way, often barefoot and often after weeks of discipline.
Idumban's shrine still stands on the smaller hill at Palani, and pilgrims traditionally worship there first. It is one of the rare places where a defeated adversary has a temple of his own on the way up.
A REFLECTION IN OUR OWN WORDS
The one who fought the god became the guard at his door.
WHERE THIS STORY COMES FROM
Temple tradition
This is the Palani tradition of the hills and of the kavadi. It is sometimes linked to the wider Kanda Puranam narrative, but it is told chiefly as the story of Palani and is kept at the temple through Idumban's own shrine on the smaller hill.
A sthala puranam is a temple's own account of why it stands where it does. These accounts are handed down at the temple and retold in many versions; they are devotional tradition rather than a single fixed text.
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More from Temple tradition
An original retelling in our own words. Devotional traditions keep different versions of many episodes.