THRISSUR: Thousands of sword-wielding oracles clad in vermilion costumes with anklets and waist chains swarmed the famed Kodungallur Sree Kurumba Devi Temple premises on Sunday banged their foreheads in the air in ritualistic vengeance, as part of the ‘Aswathy Kavu Theendal’ ceremony associated with the seven-day annual Bharani at the temple.
It is the only famed temple in central Kerala where the festival reminds one of the bloody myths and folk history during every Bharani festival in the Malayalam month of Meenam (which falls in March-April).
Every year, thousands of devotees flock to the temple as part of the ‘Kavu Theendal’ ceremony (polluting the temple). Embodying the centuries-old mystic tradition, the devotees slam their foreheads with their sabres and perform a mad run around the temple in a ritualistic trance, singing obscene songs and hurling abuses at the temple deity. They also flog the temple walls and rafters with sticks and throw coconuts and turmeric powder over its roof and at the inner sanctum sanctorum in order to pollute the temple.
Sarah Dizon, a foreigner who witnessed the festival for the first time, said the electric ambience in the temple premises when the oracles move in a trance was so frantic and everyone got terrified when they slam their heads with the sabres. The bells tied to their bellies also created a charged atmosphere, she said. The temple is believed to be a memorial built by a Chera king to Kannaki, the heroine of Ilamkovadigal’s Tamil classic ‘Silappathikaram’. Kannaki’s husband Kovilan was falsely implicated and executed by the king of Madurai. She reached here after reducing the Pandya capital to ashes with her curse.
Prevalent myths say that Kannaki’s mortal remains are kept in a sealed underground vault of the Kodunagallur temple. That’s why Kannaki look-alikes hack their foreheads with a vengeance outside the temple as part of proclaiming their communion with the God. It’s a Kali temple now, said temple authorities. Long before the enactment of the Temple Entry Proclamation, Kodungallur Temple was open to Dalits during the Bharani fest for 27 days. Symbolically, the fest is dedicated to raw and untamed energy of the repressed. It provides an opportunity to repressed sections in society to vent out anger in the form of a catharsis.
The ‘Kavu Theendal’ was overseen by the Kodungallur king in the past. He unfurls the red ceremonial umbrella over his head, signaling the velichappads charge around the temple waving their sabres. The temple will be closed to the public for the next one week. Its doors are reopened only after ‘purification’ rituals are conducted to cleanse the shrine of the ‘stain of Kavu Theendal’.