Thaipusam is a festival of the Tamil community devoted to Murugan (also Subrahmanya or Kartikeya), the youthful god of war and victory, kept on the full moon of the Tamil month of Thai (January-February), when the star Pusam is ascendant. It is best known for its dramatic acts of vowed devotion: fulfilling vows made in thanks for prayers answered, devotees carry the kavadi, an ornamented arched burden borne on the shoulders, and many undertake severe austerities, walking long distances to the temple after a period of fasting and abstinence, some bearing pots of milk, others piercing the skin, cheeks or tongue with small spears (vel) and hooks. The practices are understood as offerings that focus the mind wholly on the god and are said, by those who keep them, to be borne without pain in a state of trance.
Thaipusam is celebrated most spectacularly outside India, above all in Malaysia, where the pilgrimage up the steps to the Batu Caves temple near Kuala Lumpur draws vast crowds, and in Singapore, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and the Tamil diaspora generally; in Tamil Nadu itself the great center is Palani. The festival's intense bodily devotion has drawn both admiration and, in some quarters and periods, official regulation, and it stands as one of the most visually arresting expressions of vow-fulfilment (viratam) in the Hindu world.