3pm on the 1st Tuesday of Aadi Masam is a Manja neer/Kuzhambu Abhishekam at the Kamakshi Amman temple. The dravyangal or substances used in all the thousand abhishekams happening in this town need better reflection and treatment than we can offer here, so for now just the process. One lady from Kannika who is here also instructs us to buy “gopura manjal” from the shop next door. We do. It’s given to a man who is preparing the kuzhambu by vigorously mixing all the received turmeric with water – turmeric isn’t water soluble, so this produces at best a thick suspension (a point which becomes relevant later, as you’ll see). Too much liquid, and the suspension won’t feel like a kuzhambu at all. “Kuzhambu” because of its kozhai-kozhai “slippery-thick” texture. Then the Iyer comes over and chides the group for using water instead of paneer or rose water for fragrance. So, two bottles of rose water go in. Now the kuzhambu isn’t so kozha-kozha, so more turmeric goes in. It’s plentiful anyway, with many bringing packets in.
This whole gundaan was carried into the garbhagriha, where the abhishekam began. Visibility here was a little challenging, so I positioned myself outside, by the pranala, where the yellow liquid was eminently visible and strikingly so against the temple walls’ light blue. A group of men soon came over with a red cloth and a patram to catch the falling turmeric. Once it had flown over the deity’s body, it was sacred of course. It took several men and many more than several minutes for the liquid all to be collected, with the red cloth serving as strainer. The same hands that had worked to mix the turmeric now worked again to allow the water to flow out of it. Many women and others hung out by the pranala with us, catching the water in their own bottles and commenting on how they just needed to have it settle to collect the sacred turmeric.
The men then carried the “bag” of turmeric indoors, where they spread it out and started fashioning it into balls. Women soon took over – the scene went from being all men to being all women. The turmeric “laddoos” were laid out on trays near the sannadhi to rest or perhaps dry slightly. The Iyer came out with chandanam for everyone, the colour of which was virtually indistinguishable from the turmeric (a sign of adulteration, in that case, as chandanam should properly be just beige or brown).
There was another group of women making maalas for the Goddess. We watched them work for a while. A kunkumarchana and sahasranama recital followed, after which there was the customary deeparadhanai.
It may be sacrilege to ask why this abhishekam couldn’t have been done with plain dry turmeric, the way vibhuti is used sometimes for Murugan and Siva. But the point is never just convenience or efficiency; in fact in so many of these rituals it’s an explicit setting aside of personal convenience that is considered proper, valuable, necessary.