Thiruvananthapuram: The Attukal Bhagavathy Temple will open late tomorrow. ‘Palliyunarthal’ of Goddess will be at 7 am, ‘Nirmalyam’ at 7.30 am and ‘Usha Puja’ at 8.30 am. This is in connection with the rituals that are being observed during the Attukal Pongala Festival at the temple.
Attukal Bhagavathy is believed to be the divinised form of Kannaki. The story of Kannaki from the ‘Kannaki Charitam’ is narrated through the hyms of ‘Thottampattu’, an integral part of the Pongala festival. On each day of the 10-day festival, the Thottampattu narrates an incident of Kannaki’s life.
Yesterday, on the 5th day of the festival, the story of Kannaki that was narrated through Thottampattu was about Kannaki’s husband Kovalan being brought to Pandya King’s court accusing him of stealing the Queen’s anklet (Chilambu). Today, the story where Kovalan will be executed by the Pandya King for the wrong accusation of stealing the Queen’s anklet will be narrated.
As a sign of mourning for Kovalan being executed without proper trial, the Attukal Bhagavathy temple will open late tomorrow morning.
Kannaki is the famous heroine of ‘Cilappatikāram’ (the Tale of an Anklet) written by Ilango Adigal (a Tamil poet). It is said that after she destroys the ancient city of Madurai, Kannaki, who is believed to be the incarnation of Goddess Parvathy (the consort of Lord Siva), left the city and reached Kerala via Kanyakumari and on the way to Kodungalloor took a short stopover at Attukal.
The story of Kannaki:
Kannaki was the daughter of the merchant and ship captain Manayakan from Puhar. She marries the son of Macattuvan, Kovalan, whose family were sea traders and had the sea goddess Manimekalai as patron deity. Later, Kovalan loses all his wealth due to unfortunate circumstances. The penniless Kovalan who realised his mistakes, tried to recoup his fortunes by trade in Madurai, by selling the precious anklet of Kannaki.
Madurai was ruled by Pandya king Nedunj Cheliyan I. When Kovalan tried to sell the anklet, it was mistaken for a stolen anklet of the Queen. Kovalan was accused of having stolen the anklet and was immediately beheaded by the king without trial. When Kannaki was informed of this, she became furious, and set out to prove her husband’s innocence to the king.
Kannaki came to the king’s court, broke open the anklet seized from Kovalan and showed that it contained rubies, as opposed to the Queen’s anklets which contained pearls. Realizing the error, the king committed suicide in shame, after having caused such a huge miscarriage of justice. Kannaki uttered a curse that the entire city of Madurai be burnt. The capital city of Pandyas was set ablaze resulting in huge losses. However, at the request of Goddess Meenakshi, she calmed down and later, attained salvation.
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