ANCIENT DIVINE MARRIAGES
INTRODUCTION
Similar to the marriages of human beings, marriages of the immortals also takes place before few thousand years. Among the marriages of the deities, marriage function of Lord Sundareswarar, a form of Lord Shiva, and Mata Meenakshi, a form of Ma Parvati, is considered as the most important one.
Meenakshi is the daughter of King Malayatwaja Pandiyan and Queen Kanchanamala, who were the rulers of Madurai. After she attained teenage, she conquered all the worlds, and proved herself as the supreme women among all the worlds, and later she went to Kailasa. On seeing Lord Shiva, she felt shyness and worshipped him. Lord Shiva had promised that soon he would marry her.
As per his sayings, after some time, he went to the earth and married with Meenakshi. During their marriage function, all the gods and goddesses were assembled in the earth to get the divine vision of the deities. That divine marriage function is still being praised for its sanctity and holiness, since the couples were not ordinary people. Though Lord Shiva, who is in the form of Sundareswarar, had prosperously ruled the kingdom of Madurai, but actually he was able to rule it only through the guidance of Mata Meenakshi.
Similar to their marriage function, Lord Srinivasa also called as Venkateswara was married with Padmavathi, a form of Lakshmi at the Tirumala Hills. During that function, all the divine devas from the heaven were participated, and it was attended by the holy sages in the earth also. Both of the two divine celebrity marriage functions were took place approximately before 5,000+odd years.
Though we could not see the marriage functions of these two deities, at least, by reading about their marriage ceremony from the holy books, we can get the feeling of attending the marriage function. Nowadays marriages of humans are not lasting for a long period of time. At least by reading about the details of the divine marriages of the deities, the marriage couples must avoid clashes in their life, and they have to happily live together forever in their life.
“OM”
WRITTEN BY
R.HARISHANKAR