Sabarimala Sree Dharma Sastha

The pilgrimage is itself the worship, and begins far from the hill. The devotee takes the mala from a priest or a Guru Swami who has climbed eighteen times, and keeps the mandala vratham: forty-one days of simple, celibate living, black cloth for detachment, no cutting of hair or nails. On the eve of departure comes the kettunira — ghee poured into a coconut drained of its water, attachment out and longing in — and the irumudi bound, offerings before, provisions behind. None without it may set foot on the eighteen steps. Ayyappa is worshipped here as Naishtika Brahmachari, in unbroken celibacy, and by the temple's custom women between the ages of ten and fifty are not admitted.

The pathinettam padi are read many ways — the five senses, the eight ragas, the three gunas, vidya and avidya; or eighteen puranas and worlds — eighteen the climber rises above. Over it all stands one word, Tatvamasi, thou art that — the Devaswom's governing declaration for the shrine. Pilgrims of every caste and creed address one another only as Ayyappa and Swami; beside the sannidhanam is the Vavar Nada, for Ayyappa's friend Vavar, at whose Erumeli shrine the traditional path begins.

The temple is not open the year round. Mandala kaalam opens on the first of Vrishchikam and runs forty-one days to the eleventh of Dhanu; Makaravilakku follows at Makara Sankranti, when the Thiruvabharanam, the sacred ornaments, come three days' journey from Pandalam's Valiyakoikkal temple, and the Makaravilakku lamp is lit at Ponnambalamedu. Otherwise it opens for the first days of each Malayalam month, for Vishu, and for the ten-day Painkuni utsavam of Meenam.

What the devotee offers at last is the ghee of his own coconut, poured over the deity at the neyyabhishekam — the jivatma returning to the Paramatma — the emptied shell given to the aazhi. Each night, as the sreekovil lamps go out, Harivarasanam is sung to Ayyappa like a lullaby.

Sabarimala stands deep in forest in the Ranni-Perunad village of Pathanamthitta district, ringed by eighteen hills within the Periyar Tiger Reserve. The name is the hill's own memory: here, tradition holds, Sabari of Rama's age kept her tapas. The Devaswom holds that Parasurama consecrated the deity at the foot of these hills.

When Durga had slain Mahishasura, his sister Mahishi took from Brahma the boon that none but the son of Hari and Hara could end her; so Vishnu took the form of Mohini, and the child born of Mohini and Shiva was laid on the bank of the Pampa. Rajashekara, the childless king of Pandalam, found him there, and a sadhu bade him take the infant home and name him Manikandan, for the golden chain at his throat.

Sent into the forest for a tigress's milk, the boy cast Mahishi down at the Azhutha and ended her, and came back riding a tiger. Taking his leave, he loosed an arrow that fell upon Sabari, asked for a temple there, and said he would grace those who came after forty-one days of vratham. The Pandalam house keeps its share of him still: its representative walks with the Thiruvabharanam, and its members alone climb the eighteen steps without the irumudi. The Travancore Devaswom Board administers the shrine, with the Thazhamon Madom as tantri.

The Sannidhanam stands on a plateau raised some forty feet above the ground. The sanctum carries a gold-foil roof under four finials, with two mandapams and the balikkalpura about it, a gold-plated flagpost before. The pathinettam padi, once bare stone, are sheathed in panchaloha, the dwarapalakas Valiya Kadutha Swami and Karuppa Swami at their foot and the aazhi below. A hundred metres off are Malikappurathamma, the Manimandapam and the shrines of Nagaraja and Nagayakshi.