Skanda

deity sky Buddhist single tradition · 5

Skanda is an identical guardian deity of Mahayana Buddhism. Kataragama deviyo is identified with God Skanda of Hindu tradition, who is called as Murugan by the Tamil people. There is also an identical guardian deity of Mahayana Buddhism, known as Skanda.

↻ synthesized from 5 sources

When

First attested
400 BCE
Attested period
-400 – 2020
Historical notes
Appears in third-century BCE Mahabharata and later Skanda Purana texts.

Relationships

syncretized with
Kataragama deviyo, Kārtikeya
sibling of
Ganesha
equivalent to
Murugan, God Skanda
child of
Maheshvara, Parvati, Śiva

Expand to full subgraph →

Sources

Source passages

“Upulvan Saman (deity) Skanda (Buddhism) Kartikeya”

#11855 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“The Shalya Parva and the Anushasana Parva of the third-century BCE Hindu epic Mahabharata narrate the legend of Skanda, presenting him as the son of Maheshvara (Shiva) and Parvati”

#11931 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5

“one of her children, typically Ganesha, is on her knee, while her younger son Skanda may be playing near her in her watch.”

#29296 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5

“The proposal that this theonym is related to the name of the Hindu god Skanda is considered implausible. No references to Skanda predating the Mahabharata and Ramayana, which date at most to 400 BCE, are known.”

#39696 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“Vajrapani and Skanda”

#45675 · extracted by openai/gpt-oss-120b:free