Yearly celebration of the Kumbhabhishekam. The preparatory pujas for this festival started a day before on March 28 (with the Anugnai, Vigneswara puja, Ganapati homam, moolavar abhishekam) and apparently a dance and music performance.
This morning was a 27 Nakshatra Gomata puja and Utsavar alankaram. 27 cows—each representing one of the 27 Nakshatras —are brought together simultaneously inside or just outside the temple to receive structured prayers, Laksharchana, and sacred offerings. This is a puja to remove planetary obstacles (Nakshatra Doshas) and bring prosperity and peace. Missed it–we are still learning how to find out about each temple’s rituals and coordinate and plan so we can be there always for the right ones, but we’ve not yet grown into this project enough to keep up–so will have to wait for next year to come again and see what photos we can get.
I (Arunaditya) go in the evening around 8pm. There’s bharatnatyam going on, performed by children who will be given certificates for participating there. The priest at the Balamurugan sannadhi explains to me what a Kumbhabhishekam is, and in relation to it what an Aandu Vizha is. The patrikai outside reads “Moolamantra Chaturlaksha Japahoma Peruvizha”, a ritual being done to mark it. He asked me to attend the Lakshajapa Homam the next morning.
The way they get to chatur laksha or 4 lakhs is a computation of the number of priests reciting, through a number of puja kaalams. Simply 4 kaalams, 1 priest each would mean 1 lakh repetitions per priest, and more priests means faster progress. It’s funny to think that this is simply mathematically divided up.