Shanmukha Mantra

Who Shanmukha is

Shanmukha is the six-faced form of the deity known also as Skanda, Kārttikeya and Murugan, commander of the armies of the gods and embodiment of unified spiritual force. Each face is said to regard one of the six directions or to express one of the six powers that master the senses. Born from the sparks of Śiva’s fiery energy and nursed by the six Kṛttikā stars, he bears the vel, the leaf-shaped spear that is the concentrated śakti of Pārvatī. In the Tamil country he is the lord of the hill shrines, wedded to both the celestial Devasenā and the earth-born Valli, and celebrated in the earliest stratum of Caṅkam poetry as well as in the later bhakti hymns. His iconography—six heads, twelve arms, the peacock mount—distinguishes him at once from his elder brother Gaṇeśa and from the silent teacher Dakshinamoorthy. Contemplation of Shanmukha is bound to the gathering of scattered energies into a single, purposeful will.

Six Sparks Become One Child

The Skanda Purāṇa, together with earlier notices in the Mahābhārata and the Śiva Purāṇa, recounts the birth. When the asura Tāraka obtained the boon that only a son of Śiva could slay him, the gods contrived to disturb Śiva’s meditation. The fire that leapt from Śiva’s third eye, or in other versions the six sparks of his seed, proved too fierce for any single womb. Vāyu and Agni carried the flames to the Gaṅgā, who could not bear them and cast them among the reeds of a forest thicket called Śaravaṇa. There the six Kṛttikā nymphs discovered six radiant infants and each nursed one. When Pārvatī gathered all six into her arms they fused into a single child possessing six heads and twelve arms—Ṣaṇmukha, the six-faced. He grew in a day, received the vel from his mother, and was appointed commander of the divine hosts. He then slew Tāraka, restoring the sovereignty of the gods. In the Tamil Kanda Purāṇam the decisive battle is against the asura Sūrapadman, and his fall at Tiruchendur is reenacted each year as Soorasamharam on Skanda Ṣaṣṭhī, affirming that multiple powers may be gathered into one unwavering force.

The mantra, in six scripts

The name mantra, and the form most devotees chant daily. No initiation is required — it is open to anyone, including a parent chanting for a child.

More Shanmukha mantras

Shanmukha Gayatri

The verse in the Gayatri metre, asking for understanding as well as presence.

Source: Shanmukha Gayatri from the Gayatri collections on sanskritdocuments (Linga Purana, Mantra Maharnava, Gayatri Mahatantra). It is different from the tatpuruṣāya ... ṣaṇmukhaḥ Gayatri already on the Skanda Gayatri page.

The syllable people get wrong

The retroflex ṣ that opens ṣaṇmukhāya is formed by curling the tongue-tip upward and back; it is repeatedly replaced by the palatal ś or the dental s, so that the name is heard as “shanmukha” or “sanmukha.” Keep the retroflex quality; it is the same ṣ heard in Ṣaṣṭhī and in the middle of Viṣṇu and Kṛṣṇa.

When Shanmukha is chanted

Weekday. Tuesday

Festival. Skanda Ṣaṣṭhī, kept in the bright fortnight of Kārttikai or Aippasi according to region, commemorates the slaying of Sūrapadman, reenacted as Soorasamharam at Tiruchendur.

Questions