Tamil Nadu Temple-Mosque Boundary Dispute: Court Orders Lamp Lighting At Contested Stone Pillar

As one group of litigants pursue a legal campaign to light a lamp at a specific stone pillar for the deity Murugan, marking Karthigai at Tamil Nadu’s Thiruparankundram hill temple, the focus has turned to the history of the practice and the ownership of the religious sites of Hindus and Muslims. The pillar stands near a dargah.

The worship of Murugan on the hill near Madurai at Subramania Swamy temple is, as per Madras HC records, mentioned in Sangam literature from at least 2,000 years ago, while the Sikkandar Badshah dargah was built on the hilltop during a phase of Muslim rule in the region. There has been a history of friction between the two communities, with civil litigation launched by the temple management in 1920, but the ground reality is that both sides maintained a general peace for a century, with the lamp ceremony being performed annually at an Uchi Pillaiyar temple located halfway up the hill, rather than at the stone lamp pillar (the deepathoon) located closer to the mosque.

Attempts by worshippers to light the lamp on the very top of the hill where the mosque stood, in 1862 and 1912 were stopped by a Magistrate, for reasons that could have included possible breach of peace. The present demand is to light the lamp at the stone pillar, which is about 50 metres away from the dargah. Against this background, the plea to direct the temple management to light the ceremonial lamp at the stone pillar has revived an old demand.

The order in the case favouring the petitioner Rama Ravikumar, pronounced by Justice G.R. Swaminathan on December 1, has led to a contempt plea against the DMK government for non-compliance, a direction to the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary and Additional DGP to appear before the court next week and a challenge to the single judge’s order in the Supreme Court after one was also filed in the High Court. The Subramania Swamy temple is located at the base of a hill, while the dargah is situated at the top, and a third site, a Shiva temple, is located midway.

Just below the hilltop is Nellithope, a flat surface with tombs, and rock-cut steps leading up. These structures have been the subject of disputes between the two sides leading to civil suits in 1920, 1958, 1975 and 2011 and writ petitions in 2014 and 2017. In the latest submissions in court, the Tamil Nadu government and the religious institutions asserted that these could only be resolved after demarcation of boundaries on the ground. Moreover, previous attempts to get court orders on the lamp ceremony had failed, which meant that the settled issue could not be raised again.

But the core issues around which the court order for lighting the lamp at the ‘deepathoon’ is framed, are ownership of the physical premises, the conflict of interest of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR and CE) department in Tamil Nadu having control of the temple but disfavouring an ancient practice, and the absence of any real conflict between Muslim religious events and those of the Hindu temple, because demarcations of their respective properties stood settled through the 1923 suit order, later upheld by the colonial Privy Council.

Justice Swaminathan’s order observes that the stone lamp pillar was found covered (by the temple management), but there was no objection to this from the dargah, thus confirming its Hindu ownership. Also, the prayer before the court was not to do away with existing lamps but to add one more lamp at the stone pillar. The stone pillar was covered because the management thought “some overenthusiastic Hindu may attempt to light the lamp.”

In 2005, the dargah authorities had signed a resolution expressing no objection to lighting the lamp at the stone pillar. The temple issue has snowballed ahead of what promises to be a hotly contested Assembly election in Tamil Nadu in 2026. With the matter now before the Supreme Court - where the State’s oral mention request was declined - the stone lamp pillar issue is bound to acquire a fresh dimension.

The author is a senior journalist based in Chennai

Published on: Thursday, December 11, 2025, 10:21 AM IST