SABARIMALA: The 10-day annual festival of Lord Ayyappa temple here will conclude with the ‘arattu’ ceremony on Thursday. As part of the ceremony, the procession carrying the Lord Ayyappa’s ‘sreebali’ idol in a ‘thidambu’ on a caparisoned elephant will be taken out from Sannidhanam to Pampa at 8 am.
Thantri Kandararu Rajivaru will perform the ceremony at ‘arattu kadavu’ at 11 am on the Pampa’s banks opposite the Lord Ganapathi temple.
The ‘sreebali’ idol will then be kept at the ‘mandapam’ the Ganapathi temple for ‘darsan’ and ‘para’ offerings by devotees. At 4 pm, the ‘arattu’ return procession will leave Pampa and reach Sannidhanam at 6 pm, receiving hundreds of ‘para’ offerings along the five-km trekking path.
Once the return procession reaches Sannidhanam, the ‘sreebali’ idol will be taken inside the ‘sreekovil’ and ‘deeparadhana’ will be held at 6.30 pm. The temple will be closed at 10 pm after ‘athazha pooja’ and ‘harivarasanam’.
Meanwhile, the ‘pallivetta’ ritual was performed on Wednesday, the ninth day of the festival, at Saramkuthi at 10 pm. The procession carrying the ‘sreebali’ idol was taken out from Sannidhanam at 9 pm and reached Saramkuthi at 9.30 pm, where the ‘pallivetta’ ceremony was then performed by a senior member of a traditional family belonging to Ranni-Perunad. The ‘pallivetta’ return procession reached Sannidhanam at 11 pm.