AM: Rama abhishekam, alankaram, Deeparadhanai
PM: 4pm Satyanarayana puja and Amman abhishekam
We spent the day at the Kannika Parameswari temple, would be one way to describe the day. We were there early, for the 730am Rama abhishekam that we’d seen announced and that the Iyer had told us about. Purattasi Sani (Purattasi Saturday), after all, so His presence must be marked. The silais themselves, four together with Hanuman, are utterly beautiful–delicate features and holding bows whose curvatures match in fluid lines the more regal postures of the figures and the straightness of their arrows. The Iyer recites almost the whole Vishnu Sahasranamam while bathing them, and he’s the only priest we know who speaks each first line of each Mantra Pushpam verse, not just the first and last verses as most tend to do, prior to the conclusion of the puja. It is an unhurried, but quick affair. Not many are around, except the morning’s ubhayakaras, a few other devotees, and us. Prasadam is a simple chakkarai pongal, aval uppma (which is delicious), and panchamrutam. The lady beside me remarks: “that’s aval uppma.” I nod, because I know. “Oh you know?” she says. I nod again because my mouth is full, and after I’ve swallowed: “We make it at home, too,” I offer, “though at the temple it’s always tastier, I don’t know how.” The lady laughs. “That’s the effect of worship,” she says. I nod again, because I cannot deny the magic.
Were it not for her we may not have returned just today for the 4pm Satyanarayana puja, which happens every Pournami. But “come,” she said, and so we did. The same lady was not herself present, though others we’ve by now grown accustomed to meeting at this temple are. The women are always immensely kind, and the men less forthcoming but no less hospitable. We’ve not been allowed to leave the temple without partaking of prasadam, on many an occasion.
The puja consists of a short vinayaka invocation, followed by a quick abhishekam of what we can only describe as mini-murtis, then a navagraha puja (the temple has a navagraha shrine at the back, but the grahas are invoked in a grid of 9 thonais filled with flowers on a table next to the altar). We come in (fashionably late) when this is going on.
Another elderly lady sits beside me. She has brought damana, marikozhunthu. She insists that the davanam be placed on the body of Vishnu, and hands it forward. “It’s special for Him from yesterday,” she insists. “Why?” I ask her, “because of Friday puja?” “No!” she answers incredulously. “Because it’s Purattasi, pournami…” When I remark that it is beautiful, she corrects me sharply. “Beautiful or not, it’s necessary,” and I’m struck by the way in which the ideas central to the Damanotsavam remain like this, fixities of practice, important, but lost from their moorings.
The priest then recites the Purusha Suktam, though in a manner I don’t fully follow, and then Ashtottaram. This is followed by a reading of the five chapters of the Satyanarayana Katha. After each one, the Iyer pauses, breaks a coconut, and Satyanarayana vrata podi prasadam (which Arun later describes as ‘powdery deliciousness’).
The puja rituals at this temple are often followed by a group of devotees, mostly women but not only them, sitting in rows on either side of the main sannadhi, with two stainless steel plates: one piled with loose flowers, the other on which to pile flowers. Pink arali, usually (oleander), tulasi, chrysanthemum, small roses. As the priest recites, the flowers move, one by one. This is a standard practice, almost every time we’ve been there.
A basket in front keeps the unused flowers. As women join the puja, plates and some flowers are given to them. Some bring more, to replenish the basket used by all. Still, one can’t go too fast, as I clearly do. Sasikala laughs and chides me, while replenishing my dwindling stock with some of her own. “Go slowly!” she says, “The Ashttotara is yet to come!” I become younger in this moment, someone to teach because I clearly don’t know. The ladies demo how I must hold my hands, on which lap, how to make sure each handful has a little tulasi, a little akshatam, what to do with the offered flowers once the puja is over. And suddenly under this collective tutelage I realise that there is a pace to prayer which everyone keeps, even when they cannot hear what the priest is reciting. The movement of flowers is a page-turning or a talam-keeping, it’s a rhythm which everyone there knows to join, and which makes, even in the absence of the usual nadaswaram and percussion cues, a cadence of its own kind.
We sit for prasadam, and I’m joking with the ladies beside me who are pulling out dabbas in which to take the food home, that I never manage to remember boxes. But this is dinner now, at 630pm, and eating early is good. “Yes!” says the woman in turquoise, repeating a formula, “before 7!”
There is still bustle in the temple because the priest must now move on to the Ambal abhishekam, and everyone is conscious of time. But we leave to make it home in time for the call with Manish about how we plan to get all this together on our new website.
AM, Rama Abhishekam
Rama in the morning is a glorious sight to behold – brilliant like the rising sun. He and Lakshmana have elegantly fashioned ear-do’s that are long and swirling, and as Deepa di remarks, give the impression of a lock of hair. The abhishekam is simple yet whole in its own capacity. There was no apparent rush or corner-cutting.
PM, Satyanarayana Puja
We are asked to join in the pushparchanai and are handed a plate and some flowers. Deepa di is offered immediately, but for me – a boy dressed in shirt-pant – the ladies are unsure and seek clarification from Deepa di!! After a yes from us both, I am handed the same. The puja is already going on, and I start placing flowers one by one. The rhythm of the archanai was not immediately distinct – there was no audible marker I could find, but a subtle pulse permeating the hall slowly grew clearer.
The image of Gurukkals tossing flowers as we have seen multiple times now floated in my mind, and I sought to replicate it. This began a series of experimental flower-tosses trying to find a balance between the flicks of the wrist and fingers. Some flowers fell back onto my lap and some went flying way over the plate. Eventually: holding the flower by the stem with thumb-middle-ring, leading the movement with the wrist until the forearm could twist no more, simultaneously bringing the palm to face upwards, and flicking with the fingers at the very last moment beyond which the wrist would hurt from the twist – I found the perfectly tossiest toss. And my goodness did it really feel like a toss. This toss paired with a concentrated sense of giving, surrender, offering – both positive and negative – of the thoughts that arose gave the entire archanai a very intimate sense of ‘rightful action’. That what was being performed there was of legitimate value and in its rightful place.
I was plucking and tossing individual leaves from the tulsi stems to make my quota last the entire duration.
I had not even noticed the little Narayana figures (two of them, one flat, one 3-dimensional) on the platform covered by the alankaram flowers.
From the whiteboard: Purattasi 2-m Sanikizhamai Kaalai Seetha Raamarukku Abhishekam
Kaalai 7.30 Manikku Deeparadhanai
Maalai 4 Manikku Sri Sathya Narayana Puja, Deeparadhanai
Maalai 6.30 Manikku Pournami Ammanukku Abhishekam, Deeparadhanai