Chottanikkara Bhagavathy

At the Melkavu one Mother is honoured as three goddesses as the day turns — Saraswathy in the morning, Lakshmi at noon, Durga in the evening. Kerala takes the first of them at her word: on Vijayadasami children of three to six are set to their letters here in Saraswathy's presence, the Vidyarambham that begins a Malayali education. Thrikkarthika in Vrischikam is kept as the Goddess's own birthday.

And to the Keezhkkavu, for longer than anyone can date, Kerala has brought those in distress of mind, and their families with them. The Devaswom's words are plain: devotees come to be relieved of afflictions of body and mind, of tension, strain and want of concentration, and it says that the Bhadrakali of the lower grove releases those held by a spirit, once the bhajanam has been kept. Bhajanam is not a visit but a stay — in the Devaswom's own lodgings, the days given to the temple's hours from the four o'clock nada to the last offering, someone always beside the one who has come. After the athazha pooja the chief priest of the main shrine walks down to the Keezhkkavu for the Valiya Guruthi, prepared in twelve cauldrons and offered at about a quarter to nine each night; Friday is its great night.

The year's great day is Makam Thozhal. The utsavam falls in Kumbham, February into March: the flag goes up on Rohini, seven days of processions carry the Devi out among the houses of the thattakam, and it closes with the aarattu on Uthram. Makam falls between, and on that day the Devi stands in full attire of gold and diamond and is shown from two in the afternoon until eight at night — the darshan Kerala holds most effectual of all for a long marriage.

Chottanikkara stands on rising ground in Ernakulam district, south-east of Kochi among green turf and paddy — and to Kerala the Devi who lives there is simply Amma. Kerala Tourism dates the temple to the tenth century. It is administered by the Cochin Devaswom Board, whose shrines cover Ernakulam, Thrissur and Palakkad, and its own Devaswom page calls it the most important of them all.

The deity is swayambhu — not carved but found: a formation in laterite that the Devaswom names the Rudrakshasila. Tradition lists those who worshipped it before the temple had a recorded history — Bhogacharya first, and after him Adi Shankaracharya, Vilwamangalam Swamiyar, Kakkasseri Bhattathiri and Chemmangattu Bhattathiri. She is Rajarajeswari, Adiparasakthi; and because Mahavishnu shares her pedestal she is called Lakshminarayana, Ammenarayana, Devinarayana and Bhadrenarayana all at once — Brahma, Shiva, Ganapathi, Subramanya and Sastha on the same seat.

There are two shrines here, and the distance between them is the whole temple. The Melkavu, the grove above, holds the Mother in her gracious forms; the Keezhkkavu, below on the eastern side of the temple tank, holds her as Bhadrakali, and its west-facing image is held to have been installed by Vilwamangalam Swamiyar. One belief the Devaswom sets down itself: the Saraswathy of Mookambika is present here at dawn, and Kollur's doors open only once she has gone back.

The building is Kerala's own: laterite and timber under long slopes of tile, gabled at the ends, the shrine set in a walled and paved courtyard with its balikkalpura before it and the outer halls' roofs running round it. There is no gopuram and no carved tower: this tradition spends itself on wood and roofline, not stone.

The Sivan nada, where the dhara is poured over Shiva at daybreak and again before noon, stands in the same enclosure, with shrines for Sastha, Ganapathi and the nagas about it and an old banyan that pilgrims circle. Below the Melkavu the tank lies in its laterite walls, the Keezhkkavu on its eastern bank.