As the pilgrims keep it
Pandalam to Sabarimala · 2 min read
In Pandalam there is a small temple called Valiyakoickal, and in it, all year, three boxes of sandalwood are kept under guard. Inside them are the ornaments of Ayyappa, the gold that the old kings of Pandalam made for the boy they found by the river and raised as their own.
For eleven months the boxes stay where they are. Then, in January, they go to their son.
On the morning of departure the town fills before dawn. The boxes are brought out and lifted onto the heads of the bearers, and the procession sets off on foot into the hills.
"Swamiye saranam Ayyappa," the crowd calls as they pass. In you I take refuge, lord Ayyappa.
The walk takes three days. The path goes up through forest and down across streams, past villages where people come out to see the boxes go by. At night the bearers rest, and in the morning they go on.
Meanwhile the pilgrims are already on the hill. For forty-one days before the climb, each of them has kept a vow: a mala round the neck, black clothes, no cutting of hair or beard. Each carries on his head the irumudi, a cloth bundle tied in two, one half the offerings for the god and the other his food for the road. Only with the irumudi on his head may a pilgrim climb the eighteen steps to the shrine.
Many of them came by Erumely, where they danced the Petta Thullal through the streets, painted and carrying branches, and walked round the mosque of Ayyappa's friend Vavar before going on into the forest.
A pilgrim on his first climb is a kanni swami, and every one of them matters to the goddess on the next hill. "When will you marry me?" Malikappuram asked the god, in the story. "In the year no new pilgrim comes," he said. "Then I will wait," she said. Each kanni swami in the queue keeps her waiting another year.
On the evening of the third day the boxes reach the god. The ornaments are taken out and put on him, and the doors are opened for the lamp. In the same hour, across the valley, a light appears on the dark hill of Ponnambalamedu. The vast crowd on the hill cries out together.
"Swamiye saranam Ayyappa."
