| World / India / Kerala / Kanjirappalli, 6 km from center | Coordinates: 9°33'49"N 76°44'58"E |
This is an encient Shiva temple located in Chirakkadavu. Lets have a detailed description of this place:
(Courtesy to Mr. NB Nair (Asia News International, Delhi Beauro), Author of this Article.
My Kothazham
Kothazham – this is the sobriquet for my village called Chirakkadav, just on the foothills of Eastern Ghats in Kottayam district of Kerala. Chirakkadavu is much maligned as Kothazham, a name that has befallen on the village by default, though there is no justification.
(There is a story about the origin of the name Kothazham (am not sure whether this is correct). Chirakkadavu Mahadevan have another name as "Koovathazhe Mahadevan". This is because there is a belief that the idol of Mahadeva was come up from the earth when one old lady was digging "Koova" (something similar to ginger & turmeric ), she found blood coming from earth and she informed the people. Once they digged more, they found the idol of Lord Shiva. Bcos this idol was escavated from underneath the Koova plant, he got named as "Koova thazhe Mahadevan")
The British during their rule had changed the name of several places, as they could not twist their tongues to pronounce it. Thus Kollam became Quilon, Thrissur Trichur, Kozhikkode Calicut and Kothazham Kottayam. But, for some strange reasons Kottayam was never known as Kothazham, but this village 34 kilometers southeast of Kottayam came to be known as Kothazham, with none raising their fingers.
Except for the name, Kothazham is bestowed by natural beauty par superior to many places promoted in northern India’s Himalayan region.
Unfortunately, but for the recent initiatives, Keralites were poor salesmen when it came for promoting their own homeground for outsiders. Even before birth more than half of them would learn to raise his first and raise slogans of ‘Inquilab’, which has now become a curse for the state, which claims to have the highest number of literates in the country.
I would dispute the official figures. The so-called literacy has never been a boon for the state, except for giving birth to all kinds of trade unionism, which has now ended in militancy, worse than naxalism.
They would not allow any establishment to come up in the state, but prefer to go out of the state and do any menial jobs.
When I first landed in Dubai a decade ago, the driver who drove me down from the aircraft to the lounge was a Malayali, the painter, who was painting the building was a Malayali, the sweeper at the airport was a Malayali, the toilet cleaner was a Malayali, the driver who drove me to the hotel was a Malayali. They had no qualms in doing any job in those alien lands. But when the return on a month’s leave to Kerala, they would show such flamboyant actions, even the highest paid would not flaunt.
But Kothazham was very late in exploring the Gulf, may be because the village had a negligible population of enterprising Christians, who would go to any part of the world and succeed like Malaya or the present day Malaysia and Singapore in the 50s.
If the rustic agrarian people of Kothazham – mostly dependent on Rubber plantation, cultivation of tapioca and other tubers – allowed themselves to be known as Kothazhams, it was not without reason too. There are ample stories about the idiosyncrasy of the people that justified the name Kothazham – or people without mullah.
The place is very close to Sabarimala, the mountain temple dedicated to Lord Ayyappa on the Eastern Ghats, just 65 kilometers by shortest route on foot. In those olden days, pilgrims to Sabarimala used to trek the distance with the twin head-bag called Irumudi laden with offering material on their head from the base camp at Erumeli. If there is a perfect example for communal amity, you can find it during the pilgrimage to Sabarimala.
The presiding deity at the temple is Lord Ayyappa, his closest aide is Vavar, a Muslim, for whom a mosque has been built at Erumeli. The pilgrimage to Sabarimala is incomplete if you do not begin it without paying obeisance to Vavar at Erumeli, especially if you are a first timer. Even at the footstep of Sabarimala temple, there is a small place of worship for Vavar. Vavar was considered to be dear to Ayyappa is confirmed by the fact that a recent Ashtamangalya Prasnam held at the temple in the week of June 19 that sidestepping of Vavar by visiting devotees has annoyed Ayyappa.
Before embarking on the pilgrimage would take strict abstinence for 41 days and fill in the twin-head bags with all the devotion. Once the preparations are over, all the assembled, normally the near and dear ones and neighbours, would be given a feast before the pilgrims are seen of. The pilgrims would give ‘dakshina’ to elders, before undertaking the arduous journey through mountains and forests infested by beasts like elephants, wild boars, tigers and leopards, besides a hosts of reptiles and thus the belief was those who go without strictly observing the penance could be attacked by these wild animals.
Since the pilgrimage would take a couple of weeks, the pilgrims would reserve rice, lentils and other required food material, besides utensils to cook the food and some jute mats to take rest or to sleep at night. The jute mats would be rolled and folded and tied to the baggage.
The story goes that Mr. Kothazham would try to open the rolled mat, but before he could unfold it, the other side would get rolled up and thus he used to get tired of doing it. Ultimately, what he did was just open it and fall on the mat quickly in a dud before it return to its rolled position.
Despite such stories being related to Kothazham, none of the inhabitants ever tried to reason the baselessness of such stories doing the rounds.
An agriculture labour, who used to work for us once told me this story. While he was working at the farm of a villager, what he saw reinforced such follies of Kothazhams.
In this region of India, farmers cultivate ‘Kachil’ a tuber. It’s a creeper and once it grows beyond, say half a meter or so, farmers tie a slim rope and tie the rope to the branches of nearby trees or erect a pole for the creeper to grow. Now this genetleman fixed the rope to the ground and tied a small pebble on the other end to throw and fix it to the nearby tree branch. While throwing it, however, the pebble with the rope got entangled to a dry branch. The farmer thought, the dry branch may not be able to bear the weight of the creeper, once it grows to its full length. So he climbed up the tree, entangled the rope and put it down. He then got down and repeatedly threw the pebble-tied rope to fix it on a strong and live branch! What perhaps he could have done, when he was atop the tree, he foolishly did it after climbing down.
This tuber of Kachil is one of the tastiest in the region. There are a number of such tubers, with tapioca cultivated in the largest area. But time has changed and Keralites now consider it below their dignity to cultivate tapioca or eat it. While we non-resident Keralites relish it the most.
The Gods Own Country, now remains only namesake and the charm of the countrysides and towns have been bequeathed for much more mundane things aped from outside, especially with the return of repatriated from cities and the Gulf and other foreign countries.
The very lifestyle of Kerala has changed and we who have left its shores many many years back now look back to our olden days nostalgically, as those traces of culture has vanished from the face of Kerala.
Onam, which was once celebrated with such pomp and solemnity, has now been reduced to a celebration of traders. It is a festival for promoting consumerism, as is Diwali in northern India, Ganesh Chaturthi in Maharashtra or Durga Puja in West Bengal. Fast Moving Consumer Goods industry has taken over the celebrations, camouflaging sale of their products.
There is no family get-togthers now. No flower decorations or community or family preparation of feast. Most of the households have been left with only elderly father and mother looking after huge houses built by petrodollars. In cases, where the family stays in Kerala, they get ready to use flower decorations for what we call “Athappoo”.
Our womenfolk used to grind the spices from raw whole spices has been replaced by readymade spice powders and lately, they don’t even go for the trouble of cooking at home. Order your choice of dishes to a local hotel, it would home deliver your ‘Onasadya’ or Onam feast alongwith plantain leaves. If the aged father and mother are alone, the delivery boy would take the trouble of serving the dishes too!
The feast reminded me of my childhood days, when we used to start preparations several days in advance, like prepare those things which longs several days like pickles.
The story of pickle and Kothazham is very interesting. The main temple in Kothazham is that of Lord Shiva, the destroyer in Hindu pantheon. The imposing temple atop a small hillock, with 39 steps has a sprawling complex with a huge pond mainly for devotees to take a dip before entering the temple precincts and the priests to bathe before beginning the pujas.
In olden days when the village had a large number of jackfruit and mango trees, people used to preserve it for non-seasonal use. And for making pickle, they used to dump the mangos into the pond, which had salty water those days. (There is some incongruity in the belief of salt water in the pond at a place on the Eastern Ghats. This story could have taken place, if at all it did, at some place near the seashore. But by fate accompli befell on Kothazham).
Now after a couple of months or so when the pickle was ready, the villagers gathered around the pond to collect every person’s share. First one villager tied a big Chinese earthen pot used to preserve pickles onto his neck and jumped into the pond. As he did not come up as expected after some time, other got panicky, not for the safety of the first jumper, but the very thought that he might be collecting the whole pickle. So they all followed suit, one by one and jumped into the pond with the big earthen pot tied onto their neck.
And in no time, a large number of able-bodied men in Kothazham went down the pond, never to return with the pickle they were supposed to fetch!
But belief is belief and it is strong when it has been in vogue for long. Chirakkadav has a sister-village. Both together is known as Chirakkadav-Cheruvally for outside world.
Like the temple for Shiva in Chirakkadavu, the equivalent in Cheruvally is that of Goddess Durga or Parvathi, Lord Shiva’s consort.
Outside the main temple dedicated for Goddess Durga, there is a small temple for “Judgiyammavan” or Judge Uncle. It’s believed that if you face any obstacles in your life, an offering to Judge Uncle would see you through it.
Even a former minister, who was embroiled in a court case and lost his job, came her to make his offerings after a court set him free and he got his ministerhip back.
The story, villagers of Cheruvally narrate is like this. During the erstwhile princely state of Travancore, Ramavarmapuram Matam Govinda Pillai was a judge in the sadar court. He was from a family known as Payyampalli in Cheruvally, but later migrated to Thalavadi near Thiruvalla in the now Alappuzha district.
The judge killed his nephew Padmanabha Pillai in suspicious circumstances. But Judge Pillai later realized his folly that his nephew was innocent and made a confession before the King and demanded that he be punished for the crime. But the King was not initially prepared to punish the righteous Judge. But when the Judge insisted, the King put forward a suggestion. ‘The judge should himself pronounce the punishment to him and it would be enforced at his home village Thalavadi.’
The Judge gave himself capital sentence. It is said, the body of Judge Govinda Pillai remained on gallows for three days!
But villagers said his spirit wandered in the village as someone chided the hung body of the Judge. Nothing could pacify the spirit and the superstitious villagers approached an astrologer, who found a way to satiate the spirit. He was given a promise (by the spirit of the Judge) that it should be settled near the family deity in Cheruvally. Thus with the permission of a feudal ruler of the region, a small temple was built outside the sanctum sanctorum of Cheruvally Durga Temple for Judge Uncle and another for the nephew who was killed by him at Panayannar near Thiruvalla. Believers offer fired rice-balls, tender coconut, betel leaves and aracanut, etc. which are the favoured offerings for the Judge Uncle.
Category: story shiva
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