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What is this Festival of Lights? I thought only Diwali is a festival of lights! What significance does it have?
Lord Kartikeya is supposed to have been born from the flames of Lord Shiva's third eye into six babies, raised by the six Karthigai celestial nymphs before before united into one form by Goddess Parvati. The nymphs were given a permanent place in the constellations by Lord Shiva as stars and these stars appear brightest on the full moon night of the Tamil month Karthigai (mid-November to mid-December). This lighting lamps is primarily to thank them.
Also Lord Shiva appears in his fire form on this day at Tiruvannamalai. ( The temple where he is present as AgniLingam Annamalai representing the elememt fire. ( the other sites being as Vayulingam Kalahasteeshwara in SriKalahasti, AndhraPradesh representing element wind, Jambukeshwara in Tiruvanaikovil SriRangam representing element water, Ekambareshwarar temple, Kanchipuram representing element earth and AagayaLingam Nataraja in Chidambaram representing space. Together they are known as Panchabhootha Sthalas and all 5 temples exist since ancient times. They are all referred to in ancient literature l ike Sangam Tamil literature written between 3 b.c and 3 a.d)
This makes the entire Karthigai month auspicious. Temple travels are undertaken. Vrats kept up. Non-vegetarians turn veggies for a month, etc. And the full moon of the month is considered most auspicious.
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