Vamana Purana — Birth of Skanda (Kartikeya), Shloka 45
The Birth and Consecration of Skanda (Kartikeya) at Kurukshetra
माहासेन इति ख्यातो हुताशस्यास्तु पुत्रकः शारद्वत इति ख्यातः सुतः शरवणस्य च
māhāsena iti khyāto hutāśasyāstu putrakaḥ śāradvata iti khyātaḥ sutaḥ śaravaṇasya ca
वह ‘माहासेन’ नाम से प्रसिद्ध है और हुताश (अग्नि) का पुत्र माना जाए। वह ‘शारद्वत’ नाम से भी प्रसिद्ध है—शरवण (सरकंडों के वन) का भी पुत्र।
{ "primaryRasa": "adbhuta", "secondaryRasa": "shanta", "rasaIntensity": 0, "emotionalArcPosition": "", "moodDescriptors": [] }
FAQs
It presents Skanda as the commander of a vast divine host—an archetypal war-leader who organizes and empowers the devas’ army, especially in demon-slaying cycles like Andhaka’s.
One major Purāṇic strand narrates that Śiva’s fiery seed is borne/handled by Agni, making Fire a proximate ‘father’ in the transmission of divine potency. The text preserves this by explicitly granting Skanda the patronymic link to Hutāśa.
‘Śaravaṇa’ is a reed-thicket setting—often treated as a specific sacred landscape in Skanda lore. Even when not mapped to a single named tīrtha in the verse, it functions as a mythic-geographical marker: the deity’s manifestation is tied to a recognizable ecological feature (reed-beds), which later traditions frequently localize to particular wetlands or riverine margins.