We had never heard the words ‘panguni uttiram’ before this. We were making hotel bookings and a chatty manager of a Palani hotel told us he was so sorry he couldn’t take our reservation, they were full up because of panguni uttiram. What’s that, I asked him. Oh, a very important festival in Tamil Nadu with special significance to Muruga, he told us. We looked at the panchanga for the first time then, and found that the full moon was to fall on 18th March. Our plans had formed suddenly – Sadhguru had left for the Caribbean on 5th March and we had given ourselves a couple of days to chart out the itinerary, pack and make arrangements. A purely practical plan without any reference to auspicious days or anything.
Palani was already special to us for a few reasons, so we readjusted our plans slightly. Since we had both been to Madurai in the past few years, we decided to skip the overnight stay there and head straight from Rameshwaram to Palani. It was a longish haul but we thought it would be the perfect place to be at on the auspicious Purnima.
Turns out, the festivities for panguni uttiram aren’t just on the full moon day, but occupy the entire ‘paksha’ or waxing moon phase leading up to it. In fact, precisely the period we were to roam Tamil Nadu, hopping from temple to gorgeous temple.
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We got the perfect ringside view of the festivities at Kanchi. We trundled off by auto to Ekambareshwara only to find the doors barred. The god was out visiting – the utsava murti had been taken out for a procession. As to where, the details escape me now but Kanchi is known as the city of a thousand temples: through this fortnight, the deities were all out in street processions, in a complex schedule of visits to other deities before they returned to their own abodes. Our evening call on Ekambareshwara didn’t yield glimpse of him, but it was richly rewarded by way of a wonderful mela (a 13-day affair, I understand) at the temple. Bright sparkling lights, milling crowds, food of various kinds, a cultural show featuring (some rather good) Bharatanatyam performances by a series of promising youngsters and troupes… it was heady.
In Chidambaram, we were waiting to see the final aarti and puja where Nataraja is put to bed. We stood first attentively, then restively and then all of us sat down altogether while the priests dawdled here and there. Muruga of the ancillary temple was out on a social visit and till HE returned to the temple complex, Shiva couldn’t be closed, see? We finally walked back to our hotel by almost midnight, having missed dinner but fortified by a banana and a mouthful of prasadam.
Similar scenes everywhere: Srirangam was bedecked, in Kumbakonam, we caught the train of Lord Sarangapani as he was taken with pomp to his Devi’s shrine and back. Things really started to heat up as we reached Rameshwaram. Each village set out on its own procession to the nearest temple of significance. Drumbeats everywhere, crawling traffic honking through large dancing processions, men with sacred ash smeared on their foreheads, vels pierced through their cheeks, trucks and gear being prepared for men to undertake parava kavadi ….
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| Photo: G Karthikeyan |
The actual day in Palani was simply electric – wave after wave of devotees came, carrying decorated kavadis, bearing water that they’d consecrated for 40 days for Muruga’s abhishekam (one man generously gave us some teertham to sip at the temple), women, girls decked up in their best finery, carrying pots of milk and water, pulsating drums non-stop.
It was an exhilarating atmosphere to be caught up in.
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