Went to Perumal koyil – had a quick chat with Ramanan Bhattacharya about damana utsavam – He says it happens in a few Perumal temples, including Kanchi. Mostly in Masi, but here they do on Chithirai pournami as that’s otherwise a “low” month. Not a masam utsavam though. Can be done any month when damana is plentiful, and that’s Masi /Panguni /Chithirai. No burning of damana, no question of it. But he seemed less interested in our questions than in re-directing us to Thiruvahindrapuram. There they do a Danavanthiri alankaram, he said: they take all the mooligai and make powder and distribute as prasadam. If we leave by 3 get back to Pondy by 4, then we can come to Perumal for Ramar ul-purappadu, because it’s Punarpoosam, his birth nakshatram.
It was our loss not to heed his directions, as we would later find when we went there for the Ratnangi Sevai during the Desikar Utsavam. We reached the Perumal Koyil for the purappadu late, too, and the Bhattacharya remarked on that.