Festival · The harvest feast for the king who comes home
Onam
Onam is the harvest festival of Kerala, kept over ten days in the month of Chingam and ending on Thiruvonam. It welcomes Mahabali, the good king Vishnu sent below the earth as Vamana, who is allowed to visit his people once a year, and Kerala greets him with flower carpets, a great feast on banana leaves and snake boat races.
How longTen days, from Atham to Thiruvonam, with the boat races and celebrations running on for days after
The month of Chingam, in August or September, ending on the day of the Thiruvonam star
Why it is kept
Onam is Kerala's own festival, the harvest of the month of Chingam, when the monsoon has eased and the paddy is in. For ten days each house lays a carpet of flowers at its door, and on the day of the Thiruvonam star the whole family sits down to the same feast. They are waiting for a guest: Mahabali, the king who ruled Kerala in its golden age and comes back once a year to see his people.
The song every Malayali child learns says that when Maveli ruled, all people were equal, there was no lying and no cheating, and no one was poor. The gods feared a king so good, and Vishnu came to him as Vamana, a dwarf Brahmin, and asked for three steps of land. Bali gave it, and Vamana grew until two steps covered earth and heaven. Bali offered his head for the third, and was pressed down to the world below. Before he went he asked one thing, to visit his people once a year, and Onam is that visit.
Kerala keeps it as a homecoming, not a defeat. The flowers, the new clothes and the feast are there so that the old king will find his people as happy as they were in his day. It is also the harvest festival of a farming country, and the boat races of the backwaters belong to the same season of plenty.
Who is worshipped
M
Prime god
Mahabali
The asura king of the golden age, grandson of Prahlada, whose rule was so just that the gods grew afraid. Onam is his yearly homecoming, and he is the one Kerala dresses up to receive.
The dwarf Brahmin who asked Bali for three steps of land, took the worlds in two and set the third on Bali's head. At Thrikkakara, his temple near Kochi, Onam is kept as Vamana's festival.
The god of the Aranmula temple, who came as a boy guest to the Bhattathiri of Kattoor and receives the Thiruvonam feast by boat.
The ten days of Onam
1
Atham
The day of the Atham star in Chingam · Friday 3 September 2027
The first day. The first ring of the pookalam, the flower carpet, is laid in front of the house, usually of yellow flowers, and it grows by a ring every day. At Thrippunithura near Kochi the Athachamayam procession, once the royal march of the Kochi kings, opens the festival.
2
Chithira to Pooradam
The seven stars between Atham and Uthradam
The middle days
The pookalam grows wider and brighter each morning. Families clean and decorate the house, buy new clothes, the Onakodi, and send them to relatives. The Onam clay figures, Onathappan, are made ready, and the shops and markets are full for the Onam sales.
3
Uthradam
The day before Thiruvonam · Saturday 11 September 2027
First Onam
The eve, when the shopping for the feast is done in a rush, and the eldest of the Mangattu family sets out by boat with the Thiruvonam provisions for Aranmula. In many homes this night is called the first Onam.
The day of the Thiruvonam star in Chingam · Sunday 12 September 2027
Second OnamOnam
The great day. The largest pookalam is laid, the Onathappan is set in the middle of it, and the family bathes, puts on new clothes and eats the Onasadya, a feast of more than twenty dishes served on a banana leaf. Mahabali is said to walk through Kerala that day to see that his people are happy.
The celebrations run on. Mahabali's leave-taking is marked, the Onathappan is put into water in some homes, and in Thrissur the Pulikali, men painted as tigers, dance through the streets on the fourth Onam.
The state festival. Schools and offices close for days, the government holds an Onam week with cultural shows across the state, and every house, rich or poor, tries to lay a pookalam and eat the sadya. The old saying is that one should eat the Onam feast even if one has to sell one's land for it.
Thrikkakara, near KochiVamana's temple
The temple of Vamana at Thrikkakara is held to be where Mahabali ruled and where Onam began. Its ten-day festival ends on Thiruvonam, and many homes call the Onathappan "Thrikkakarappan".
Aranmula, PathanamthittaThe Uthrattathi boat race and the Vallasadya
The snake boats, palliyodams, of the villages along the Pamba race before the Parthasarathy temple on the Uthrattathi day after Onam, singing as they row. They are not racing to win so much as rowing for the god, and the Vallasadya feast is offered to their crews.
Alappuzha and the backwatersVallam Kali
The boat race season. The Nehru Trophy race on the Punnamada lake, held in August, and the races at Champakulam and Payippad bring out chundan vallams more than a hundred feet long, with a hundred rowers each.
ThrissurPulikali
On the fourth Onam, troupes of men painted as tigers and hunters dance through the Swaraj Round to the beat of drums.
Tamil Nadu and the Tulu coast
Onam was once kept beyond Kerala too. The Tamil Sangam poem Maduraikanchi describes an Onam festival at Madurai, and Malayalis in Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai and the Gulf keep it today with sadyas and pookalam contests.
Christians and Muslims of KeralaA festival for all of Kerala
Onam is kept by almost every Malayali, whatever their faith. Christian and Muslim families lay pookalams and eat the sadya, churches and mosques join the celebrations, and the Mahabali story is told as the memory of a time when all people were equal.
How it is kept
The pookalam is laid every morning from Atham, a ring larger each day, until on Thiruvonam it is a circle of flowers several feet wide. Clay figures of Onathappan, pyramids of red clay, are set in it. Families give new clothes, the Onakodi, to one another and to those who work for them.
The Onasadya is the heart of the day: rice, sambar, avial, thoran, olan, kalan, pachadi, pickles, banana chips, pappadam and two or three kinds of payasam, served in a fixed order on a banana leaf and eaten with the hand. Afterwards there are games and dances: the Thiruvathira Kali of the women, swings hung from the trees, the tug of war, and the Onathallu fights. On the backwaters the snake boats race, and in Thrissur the tiger dancers come out.
In the old texts
The story of Vamana and Bali is told in the Bhagavata Purana's eighth book, in the Vamana Purana and in the Mahabharata, and the three strides themselves are as old as the Rig Veda. None of these texts mentions Onam. The Kerala story of Bali's yearly visit is a folk tradition, sung in Malayalam songs, and the Purana is clear only that Bali was given Sutala, a world below richer than heaven, with Vishnu himself as his doorkeeper.
The festival is old all the same. The Tamil poem Maduraikanchi, from the Sangam age, describes an Onam festival in honour of Vishnu at Madurai, and the medieval copper plates of the Tiruvalla temple in Kerala record endowments for an Onam feast. The Thrikkakara temple's festival of Vamana is the oldest form of it still kept.
Where this page comes from. Written by Devalok from the Bhagavata Purana (Skandha 8), the Vamana Purana, the Maduraikanchi, the traditions of the Thrikkakara and Aranmula temples, and accounts of the festival across Kerala, as recorded in the Devalok Lore. Our own words throughout.
