We spend a few hours with the priests (Jayashankar Gurukkal and Sridhar Bhattacharya) of the Chetty Koyil gathering the temple’s practices and annual ritual calendar. It’s a little confusing at moments, partly because we’re learning how the temples keep and time their pujas and utsavams, partly because there is some confusion on what pancha paruvam means in this temple’s practice (there was debate on whether chaturthi gets included in it or not). If the Chetty Koyil follows the model of the Vedapuriswara Koyil, as we soon learn it does, then the Pancha Paruvam are: Masa pirappu (birth of each new month), Pournami (full moon), Amavasya (new moon), Theipirai Ashtami (the 8th day of a waning moon), and the monthly Sivaratri (Chaturdashi of the theipirai period, or Krishna paksha).
Ganesan sir asked us to ask about Nityotsavam, but there was no clarity on this. Kotiswarar is new at the Chetty temple, Jayashankar Gurukkal has been there since 2012, Sridhar Bhattacharya at the Perumal temple within the Chetty Koyil complex has been here 20 years, but in no case does there appear to be a very long hereditary line of priests managing either the Sivan or Perumal koyils here. The Perumal Koyil is also relatively new; Kalathiswarar is the truly old deity of this place.