As Aranmula tells it
Aranmula, Pathanamthitta · on the Pamba river · 3 min read
At Kattoor, on the Pamba river in central Kerala, there was a family house called Mangattu Illam, and its head was a Bhattathiri, a learned Brahmin. For a long time he and his wife had no children. When at last a child was born to them, he was sure it was the gift of Krishna, who is worshipped as Parthasarathy, the charioteer of Arjuna, in the temple at Aranmula a little way down the river.
The Bhattathiri had a custom of his own on Onam. On the day of Thiruvonam, before he ate, he would wash the feet of a young Brahmin student, sit him down and feed him the whole feast. Only after the guest had eaten would the household eat.
One year Thiruvonam came and no guest came with it. The rice was cooked, the banana leaves were cut, the curries and the payasam were ready, and the noon passed. His family begged him to eat.
"I will not eat until a guest has eaten," said the Bhattathiri. "That has always been the rule of this house."
He sat by the door and prayed. In the afternoon a boy came walking up the path, alone, a Brahmin boy he had never seen before. The Bhattathiri washed his feet, sat him down and served him everything, and the boy ate as if he had never eaten so well in his life. Then he thanked the house and walked away.
That night the Bhattathiri had a dream. The boy stood before him, and he was Krishna of Aranmula.
"You have fed me well," said Krishna. "You need not wait for guests at your door any more. Bring the Onam feast to my house instead, every year, and I will eat it there."
The next year the Bhattathiri loaded rice, vegetables, coconuts and everything else for the feast into a boat and rowed it down the Pamba to Aranmula, so that it reached the temple on the morning of Thiruvonam. The boat came to be called the Thiruvonathoni, the boat of Thiruvonam, and he made the same journey every year after that.
On one of those journeys robbers came out of the reeds and fell on the boat. The news ran along the banks faster than the river. The men of the villages jumped into their own long boats and rowed out to drive the robbers away, and they brought the Bhattathiri safely to the temple.
"From now on," they said, "you will not go alone." Every year after that, the boats of the riverside villages rowed with the Thiruvonathoni to guard it. They were built long and high, with tall sterns so the oarsmen could see trouble coming, and in time they were given to the temple. They are the palliyodams of Aranmula, the great snake boats.
The family later moved away to Kumaranalloor, near Kottayam, but the journey never stopped. Every Onam the eldest Bhattathiri sets out by boat a few days early, reaches Kattoor, moves the provisions into the decorated Thiruvonathoni, and arrives at Aranmula before dawn on Thiruvonam with the snake boats beside him. The temple's morning worship waits for the lamp he brings.