Batu Caves – Shrine Of Lord Murugan

Temples of East Asia | Ricky | September 25, 2009 at 3:36 am

If one talks about the most popular Hindu temples outside India, then Batu Caves will take the first place in the list. Batu Caves are located 13 km north of the Malaysian Capital city of Kuala Lumpur. The cave temple is dedicated to the Hindu god Lord Murugan and is visited by millions of devotees, especially during the Hindu festival of Thaipusam. The caves are a part of a limestone hill with dates back to approximately 400 million years. In historic times the caves were used as a place for shelter by the indigenous tribe knows as Temuan.

Batu caves came in prominence in 1892, when K. Thambossamy Pillai installed a statue of Sri Subramania Swamy in the caves. He found the shape of the cave’s entrance resembling a ‘vel’, the divine spear of Lord Murugan. Since then the Hindu festival of Thaipusam has been celebrated at the caves.

The devotees have to go through a steep climb of 272 steps to reach the cave entrance. The largest of the caves is known as the Temple came and has a 100 meters high ceiling. The cave has many shrines of different sizes, all depicting the victory of Lord Murugan over Soorapadam . Adjacent to the main cave, is the Ramayana cave which has a 15 meters tall statue of Lord Hanuman at its entrance, the monkey god. This cave has many illustrations of Ramayana.

During the festival of Thaipusam, devotees start their trip from Sri Mahamariamman Temple, Kuala Lumpur to Batu caves. They carry milk in decorated shoulder based carriers which are also known as kavadi’s. Some of the kavadi’s are made of metal and have long skewers, as the devotees go into a state of trance; these skewers are pierced into their skin. Some Devotees carry hundreds of kg weight and reach the Batu caver, where there holly journey get over after offering the milk to the god. The priests of the Batu caves attend to the kavadi’s by sprinkling holy ash on the skewers and piercings thus making sure that there is no bloodshed when they are removed from the devotes body.

In the year 2007, 1.5 million devotees had gathered at the Batu caves, making it one of the largest gatherings in the history. Apart from the devotees, the caves are also visited by cynomolgus monkeys. Batu Caves have also become an important place for adventure sports offering more the 160 routes for rock climbing.