The city of woman is filled with woman devotees who braving the hot sun, prepared ‘Pongala’ (offering) in makeshift brick stoves to appease the presiding deity of Attukal Bhagavathy temple, in what is called as one of the world’s largest gathering of woman.
The women, who converged here from all over the state and outside, prepared ‘pongala’ (a mix of rice, jaggery and scraped coconut) for about two hours in fresh earthen or metal pots by lining up on either side of the roads around the shrine. And thanks to makeshift brick stoves lined up on the either side of the road, the city seemed to be converted into a ‘yaga shala’.
The worshippers started converging here a day ahead of the festival, which also saw participation of eminent personalities, including the wife of the Kerala Governor, well known poetess Suguthakumari and veteran sprint queen P T Usha.
Attukal temple is also called ‘women’s Sabarimala’ as only women perform the ritual, while it is predominantly men who undertake the pilgrimage to the hill shrine of Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimla. Women in the age group of 10-50 years are not allowed to worship at Sabarimala under the temple tradition, which has been challenged in the Supreme Court recently.
According to the local legend the pongala festival commemorates the hospitality accorded by women in the locality to Kannagi, the divine incarnation of the heroine of the Tamil epic ‘Silappadhikaram’ while she was on her way to Kodungalur in central Kerala after destroying Madurai city to avenge the injustice to her husband Kovilan. The pongala festival marks the finale of the 10-day ritual at the shrine.
On Friday the rituals began at 10.15 am when chief priest Vamanan Namboothiri lit the main hearth (Pandara Adappu) near the shrine — signalling the start of the annual ritual, while the sanctification (Nivedyam) ceremony was held at 2.20 pm.
At least 983 boys, aged below 13 years, will participate in ‘Kuthiyottam’ later tonight when the presiding deity’s In fact in 2009, the ritual had made it to the Guinness Book of World Records for being the largest religious gathering of women on a single day when over 2.5 million people took part in it.
The idol will be taken in a procession to Sastha temple at Mannacaud. A controversy had already been erupted over the conduct of ‘Kuthiyottam’ ritual, with the Kerala state Commission for Protection of Child Rights suo motu registering case. Notably, DGP R Sreelekha had also protested against the ritual in her blog. However, the temple authorities have rejected the charges and said no one was being forced by the shrine to participate in the ritual.
In fact in 2009, the ritual had made it to the Guinness Book of World Records for being the largest religious gathering of women on a single day when over 2.5 million people took part in it. A record of 2.5 million women took part in the festival on a single day in 2009.
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