Single woman ubhayam (the same lady who comes daily to do the Lalita Trishati archanai). Kalyana gurukkal and the other priest whom we’ve seen before doing the puja. Hardly anyone present at first, some doing circumambulations needing to be told not to cross the puja area. Slowly a group gathers, but it’s never very big.
At the Chetty koyil, the crowd is bigger but the proceedings are not much different. Modakams are given as offerings to Agni! The priest who does the Durga abhishekam for them is officiating.
A bit later in the afternoon, Nandhikeswara priests are at the Gangai Vinayaka temple, which is of course the Vinayaka shrine that pre-dates and was open long before the Nandhikeswara.
The schedule here: Sri Gangai Vinayaka Maha Sankatahara Chaturthi: (31/08, Monday)
- 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM – Homam
- 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM – Sakala Abhishekam, 108 Shankhabhishekam (Conch Abhishekam)
- 6:15 PM - 6:45 PM – Deeparadhanai, Archana
And as ever with this temple, the aesthetics are just absolutely perfect. We’ve by now seen so many Shankhabhishekams, but none where the conches are laid out this beautifully, in almost a perfect grid. They were laid out by the well, and the afternoon light streams in from behind there, so perhaps that had an effect as well. The agni kundam was just in front of the conches, and the priests sat on the N-S ends. They had books open and were reading Tamil script as all the pujas here are done in Tamil, but we forgot to ask them what specifically the recitations are. After the purnahuti, the shankhabhishekam begins–and here, too, is a beautiful process because each conch is picked up and very carefully passed on, person-to-person, all the way to the garbhagriha where it is poured on the waiting Vinayaka. Everyone there takes the task very seriously. While I understand entirely why the priests at other temples keep the ritual objects in their care alone, there is something very relieving about Nandhikeswara’s participatory processes overall.
The abhishekam itself is being videographed by a media man of unfortunately wide width, so we can barely see what is going on. Alankaram takes very, very long though each time the time-estimation is “half an hour” so we rely on the photograph sent out by the Dewan later for the final chandana-kaappu look!
Back at the Chetty Koyil in the evening is an Unjal utsavam. We reached just before 7 when the utsavar + siddhi buddhi was being taken to the unjal. Some kerfuffle getting it onto the cart for the pradakshina. Took some time to get the unjal set up. Dance was about to happen but we left.
Is this also the Chetty Koyil Aandu Vizha? A poster to that effect is on file.