The Story of God Ayyappan

Lord Manikandan

There is an interesting story about how God Ayyappan became the son of Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiva. Once the demon Mahisi observed a long penance towards Lord Brahma to take revenge on Devas as they were the reason for the end of her brother.


Lord Brahma appeared before her and she got a boon of nobody can kill her except son of Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu. Soon after getting boon Mahisi began to give a lot of trouble to Devas. In the meantime Devas were trying hard to get nectar to get rid of curse since they had been cursed by the powerful sage Duruvasar

. But, the wicked Asuras stole the nectar. On behalf of Devas, Lord Vishnu became a beautiful Mohini to deceive Asuras in order to get back the nectar. On hearing this Lord Shiva became curious to see the Mohini form of Lord Krishna. When he saw the Mohini form God, he was stunned at her beauty. And thus Lord Ayyappa was born as son of Lord Shiva and Lord Krishna.

Let us now know how Lord Ayyappan came to this physical world.  Rajasekara the descendant of Pandya dynasty was then ruling the Pandalam province in Kerala state of India. The king  ruled Pandalam prosperously as the citizen could lead a peaceful and happy life. Unfortunately, the king and queen were not happy as they had no kids. The king Rajasekara was a great devotee of Lord Shiva and he prayed Lord to bless him to have a  baby. One day the king went for hunting near river Pamba. While hunting he happened to hear a baby cry in the forest. The king and soldiers immediately went on searching for the baby. Atlast they found a wonderful male child. The baby had worn a golden chain with bell around his neck. Though the king wanted to take out that baby, he hesitated to do so. Then suddenly a saint appeared before the king and suggested to grow that baby in his palace and the baby was named after Manikandan. Every one in the province were became happy on the arrival of new baby to the king family. Manikandan proved himself as he was devine boy when he was growing up in the palace. In the mean time there was another male child born to the queen. Then naturally  queen missed to treat Manikandan as her own son and take care of only her own son. But, the king loved Manikandan as well as his own son. Diwan of kingdom gave the queen a wicked idea of killing Manikandan as he would have become King of the province next to Rajasekar. Both of them tried to kill Manikandan in many ways. But, all of them were vain due to the spiritual power of Manikandan. At last the diwan advised queen to pretend herself as she had severe head ache and demand a cup of tigress milk can cure the head ache.

But the king never liked to send Manikandan to forests as he was completed only twelve years of age that time. But, Manikandan compromised his father to allow him to go to forest to get tigress milk. Then king arranged some soldiers to help Manikandan in this difficult task. But, he asked the soldiers not to accompany with him. On his way to the forest Manikandan came to hear about the demon Mahishi and since he is God he went to Devaloka to kill her. After a severe waring, Mahisi was killed by the God Manikandan and her body was thrown on the banks of river Alutha. Then Lord Shiva appeared before Manikandan and advised him to go back to palace. Many devas took the form of tigers and tigresses and Manikandan took seat on one of the tigers.

 The king became very sad and feared about the security of Manikandan. A sage suddenly appeared before him and told about the history and reason of his birth to this world. When Ayyappan arrived at the palace, the king fell at his feet to forgive queen and diwan for every thing that happened before. The king requested Manikandan to allow him to build a temple for him. Manikandan threw an arrow and that fell on the Sabarimala. Rajasekar successfully built a beautiful temple for Ayyappan with eighteen holy steps. From that day the king and his followers observed 41 days of viratham before going to Sabarimala. Today millions of devotees from different parts of the country start to come here to get blessing of God.