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Pothuraja

Pothuraja is the guardian deity of the Draupadi Amman temple who helped the Pandavas win the battle against the Kauravas by giving them powerful weapons and items. Bhima disguises as a woodcutter to damage Pothuraja's fort from within while Arjuna disguises as a woman to trick Pothuraja into handing over his possessions. Though he realizes he was deceived, Pothuraja willingly serves Draupadi. In return, the Pandavas award him Sanguvathi as his wife for his selfless service to Draupadi. The story is unique to Tamil versions of the Mahabharata and is enacted in temple festivals.

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Balaji Srinivasan
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2K views2 pages

Pothuraja

Pothuraja is the guardian deity of the Draupadi Amman temple who helped the Pandavas win the battle against the Kauravas by giving them powerful weapons and items. Bhima disguises as a woodcutter to damage Pothuraja's fort from within while Arjuna disguises as a woman to trick Pothuraja into handing over his possessions. Though he realizes he was deceived, Pothuraja willingly serves Draupadi. In return, the Pandavas award him Sanguvathi as his wife for his selfless service to Draupadi. The story is unique to Tamil versions of the Mahabharata and is enacted in temple festivals.

Uploaded by

Balaji Srinivasan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The guardian deity of the Draupadi Amman temple and the warrior god who lead

the Pandavas towards victory. Pothuraja resides in seven walled fort in which he
enshrines the 'veera Kuntham(mighty trident), veera Jattai(mighty lasso), veera
pambai(a percussion instrument), veera mallari(Drum), Veera gandham(turmeric),
Bandara petti(treasure box), etc which the Pandavas have to posess to win the
battle with the Kauravas. Bhima guises as a wood cutter and by deceit gets
imprisoned and starts damaging the fort from within while Arjuna comes in the
guise of a young woman who is accompanied by Krishna in the guise of an old lady.
Arjuna lures Pothuraja and says that if he wishes to marry he has to hand over all
his belonging to the old lady for her to do Shiva puja and sacrifice all his fort and
kingdom and follow her. Blinded by love on doing the same Pothuraja understands
that he is deceived, however his destiny is to serve Draupadi selflessly. The
Pandavas decide to award him the hand of their sister Sanguvathi, born of the union
of Pandu and Madri and nurtured in a conch (shanku) in marriage as a token for his
selfless service to Draupadi. The story is unique and found in Tamil versions of the
Mahabaratha and forms an important part of the Draupadi cult in Tamil regions. The
story is also enacted as Por Mannan Kathai or Sanguvathi Kalyanam in the
Bharatha-k-koothu theatre performed as a part of the Draupadi temple festivals.

your guise
your demand
your deceit
none shatters me
by will
I lead you
to win
the Kurukshethra

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