It is the time of Vrischikolsavam at the Oachira Parabrahma temple.
What makes the festival and the temple distinct is its deep-rooted fascination for sustaining the virtues of spirituality found among the downtrodden.
Every year, thousands of people throng the abode of Lord Parabrahma where they attain selfrealisation while becoming a part of the festival which is held from Vrischikam 1 to 12.
It is a temple without a sanctum sanctorum, idols and priests. God and Nature merge together in every inch of the sublime premises spread over an area of 26 acres.
The Ondikkavu provides a green cover where the devotees realise God as the manifestation of Nature. There is no stipulated time schedule for offering worship at the temple.
“It is a temple which promotes the real Indian-ness. Over the years, changes may have occurred in our material life; but the concept of Parabrahma continues to remain unchanged here,” says V Sadasivan, secretary of the Oachira Parabrahma Trust.
He points out that they had never tried to make the temple a corporate entity and promote spiritualism for monetary gains. “You see here devotees collecting the very soil on the temple premises as prasadam,” he said.
“The main offering of the temple is annadanam for the destitute, who seek shelter under the shade of the giant old trees here,” he says.
There are 212 destitute people who spend their twilight days at the Oachira temple. Most often, the grown-up children occupying high positions in society, who find their ailing parents a burden, abandon them in the crowd here. But, the Parabrahma here offers them solace, food, and shelter of Nature.
The temple trust gives them food and medical care at its own hospital.
If they are too weak to sustain themselves, they will be shifted to a shelter nearby. Here death comes unnoticed and takes away the frailest, giving them Moksha. But, the trust authorities take care of them. They have distributed smart cards to the 212 destitute to get free treatment.
In the temple, which has a mythical link with Akavoor Chathan of the “Parayipetta Panthirukulam,” the devotees worship ox as an incarnation of the Parabrahma.
Describing the temple as a promoter of the real essence of spirituality and Bharatiyatha, Sukumar Azhikode had said the other day at a meeting at Oachira that the Parabrahma abode was not the Southern Kashi but the Southern Himalaya, the summit of spirituality.
The structure of the trust has also been decided on democratic principles by the forefathers. As they had no pseudo-ideological postures, they decided it on a caste-basis.
In the 261-member trust, 40 percent of the members are elected from the Nair community, 40 percent from the Ezhava community, 10 percent from the Araya and 10 percent from the other backward communities of Mavelikkara, Karthikappally and Karunagappally taluks. The 61-member working committee and the 11-member executive form part of the system of administration.
The two Nair families with the right to perform the pooja are also having representation in the committee.
Christian and Muslim devotees also offer worship at the temple, adding to the secular culture of Onattukara.
“The people here will pooh-pooh the idea of ‘religious harmony’ as they experience the oneness of humanity at a higher level here everyday,” says Sadasivan.
This time, the trust has erected 1,400 parnasalas for the devotees who throng the temple to observe ‘Vrutham’ during the Vrischikolsavam from November 17 to 28. Here, everybody spends the days and nights in prayers merging with Nature as equals. The majority of those who observe ‘Vrutham’ at the parnasala is from the Araya community from the Alappad panchayat.
The festival days are also reminiscent of the once agricultural affluence of Onattukara. Besides the agricultural products and handicraft, the festival also facilitates selling of all kinds of products at the trade fair. It had provided a platform for science exhibitions in the past when there was no television or internet to showcase the scientific advancement of the nation. Now, the festival offers a platform for artistes to perform during the 12 days. In the various cultural, literary, youth and women’s meetings, several prominent personalities speak to the thousands of people.
T Prasannan, honorary editor of Oachira Visesham, a 20-year-old-publication, sums up: “The Oachira Parabrahma temple is a place of spiritual mirth and is the pinnacle of Indian-ness in all sense.”