Batu Caves Sri Subramaniar Templeਬਾਤੂ ਗੁਫ਼ਾਵਾਂ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਸੁਬਰਾਮਣੀਅਰ ਮੰਦਰ

North of Kuala Lumpur, a limestone hill rises straight out of the plain, its cliff face pierced by a vast cave mouth, and in front of it stands a golden giant. Batu Caves is a series of limestone caves in Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia, holding a complex of Hindu cave temples whose main shrine, the Sri Subramaniar Swamy Temple, is dedicated to Murugan. A 42.7 metre statue of the god, among the tallest Murugan statues in the world, guards the foot of the 272 steps that climb to the Temple Cave, and every year the caves become the focal point of Thaipusam, the great Tamil Hindu festival in Malaysia. Few Hindu shrines outside India are as visited, or as instantly recognisable, as this one.

What are the Batu Caves?

The Batu Caves are a complex of around 20 recognised caves in a 325 metre limestone hill, a mogote, about 13 kilometres north of Kuala Lumpur. The name comes from batu, the Malay word for rock; in Tamil the complex is called Pathu Malai. The limestone itself was formed more than 400 million years ago. Of the cave temples in the complex, the largest and best known is the Temple Cave, a huge chamber with a very high vaulted ceiling housing several Hindu shrines, reached by the famous stairway. The temple within it is built in the Dravidian tradition of South India, the style explored in Jugti's guide to Dravida temple architecture. The caves are also a protected natural site, home to bats, cave insects and an endemic trapdoor spider, Liphistius batuensis, found nowhere else.

How did a limestone cave become a Murugan temple?

The caves were used as shelters by the Temuan people, an Orang Asli tribe, long before they held temples. In the 1860s Chinese settlers began excavating guano from the caves for fertiliser, and in 1878 the American naturalist William Hornaday visited and described them. The temple story begins with K. Thamboosamy, an Indian Tamil trader, who promoted the cave complex as a place of Hindu worship: the cave entrance is said to have reminded him of a vel, the divine spear Murugan carries. A Hindu temple dedicated to Murugan was completed in the caves in 1891, and the annual Thaipusam celebrations commenced in 1892. Development of the religious sites has continued ever since, turning a guano cave into the spiritual centre of Malaysian Tamil Hindu life.

The 272 steps and the golden Murugan

To reach the Temple Cave, pilgrims climb. Wooden steps were first installed in 1920 so devotees could reach the shrine, and in 1940 the present 272 concrete steps were built on the southern side of the complex, replacing stairs that had begun to deteriorate. In August 2018 the steps were repainted, each flight in a different bright colour, and the rainbow stairway has since become part of the site's image around the world. To the right of the steps stands the statue: 42.7 metres, 140 feet, tall, painted gold, unveiled in January 2006 after three years of construction. It is among the tallest Murugan statues in the world and the tallest statue in Malaysia. At the base of the hill sit two more cave shrines, the Art Gallery Cave and Museum Cave, together called Cave Villa, filled with statues and paintings from Hindu mythology, and to the left the Ramayana Cave, its entrance marked by a 15 metre statue of Hanuman, whose temple there opened in November 2001.

What happens at Thaipusam in Batu Caves?

Thaipusam, in the Tamil month of Thai, is the day Batu Caves belongs to the whole country. The festival honours Murugan, and its centrepiece is devotion carried on the body: kavadi, literally a burden, in which devotees carry ornate structures of wood or steel on their shoulders, pots of milk called paal kudam, and, in the most striking form, the vel kavadi, a portable altar hung from skewers and hooks pierced through the skin. Devotees prepare for up to 48 days beforehand, keeping clean, praying regularly, eating a vegetarian diet, fasting and remaining celibate. The procession begins in the morning from the Sri Mahamariamman Temple in Kuala Lumpur, when a silver chariot of 350 kilograms carrying Murugan with his consorts Valli and Deivanai is drawn through the streets; after ritual bathing in the Sungai Batu river, devotees climb the 272 steps to place their burdens before the god. It is the same pairing of shrine and procession that drives great temple festivals in India itself, such as the chariot world of Meenakshi in Madurai.

Visiting Batu Caves

Batu Caves is one of the easiest major shrines in Asia to reach: a commuter train runs from KL Sentral in Kuala Lumpur directly to Batu Caves Komuter station at the site, and bus 11 and the road serve it as well. Entry to the Temple Cave is by the stairway, so bring water, expect the long tailed macaques that live around the steps, and dress as a guest at a working temple, with shoulders and knees covered. The main cave is a place of daily worship, busiest at Thaipusam and quietest early on ordinary mornings. Devotees who know Murugan from his great temples in Tamil Nadu will find the same god here in a wholly different setting: not a stone gopuram town but a cathedral of living rock, raised by a diaspora community that made a Malaysian limestone hill into one of the sacred addresses of the Tamil world, in the line of the diaspora shrines gathered on Jugti's mandir hubs.