Over 6,000 children were initiated into the world of letters at the Vidyarambham function held at the Dakshina Mookambika Temple in Panachikkadu here on Wednesday. People from all the districts in the state visited the temple to offer prayers and to make their children write their first set of letters - ‘Hari Sree Ganapathaye Namaha’ in praise of Lord Ganesha. The Vidyarambham function which started at 4 am continued till 5 pm.
The temple premises witnessed a huge crowd trying to gain entry into the temple from 3 am in the morning, and the heavy rush showed signs of relenting only after 2 pm. According to the temple authorities, 50,000 people was estimated to have visited the temple on Wednesday.
There were 40 acharyas to perform the ‘Vidyarambham’ ceremony. They were led by Kaimukku Vasudevan Namboothiri and Karinattu Vasudevan Namboothiri. The ritual was conducted at a makeshift ‘Vidya Mandapam’ on the temple premises. Acharyas, with golden rings, first wrote the letter ‘hari sree’ on the children’s tongues, and then they made the children write the letter using their index finger on a bed of rice.
While the children wrote ‘hari sree’ inside the ‘Vidya Mandapam’, some elders were seen writing the letter on the temple walls and on the ground inside the temple wall with their index fingers.
“As the Saraswati temple is known as the Dakshina Mookambika Temple, people from Thiruvananthapuram to Ernakulam visit our temple for the Navaratri. We had the most number of devotees coming from Thiruvananthapuram for ‘Vidyarambham’. Other than from Kottayam, we also had a large number of visitors from Kollam, Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta, Idukki and Ernakulam,” Dakshina Mookambika Temple assistant manager Sree Kumar told Express.
The Temple Trust is owned by three ancient families, and this is the only temple in the state where the goddess has only the Saraswati bhavam’, and that is the reason for its popularity regarding the Vidyaramabham ceremony. “Even at the Mookambika Temple, Saraswati has three different bhavas,” said temple manager K N Narayanan Namboothiri.
As part of the nine-day-long Navaratri celebrations, every day at the ‘Oottupura’ of the temple, free food was served three times a day including Wednesday.
The national art and dance festival being conducted at the auditorium on the temple premises came to an end early morning on Thursday.