It was an online link that led me to a few photographs of a rare celebration. The images were accompanied by very little write-up for me to get a clear idea about the occasion. All I could infer was that it was a festival called ‘Padai Kavadi,’ celebrated in a village called Valangaiman, near Kumbakonam in Tamil-Nadu.

I reached out to a few friends from Tamil Nadu who in turn connected with their acquaintances from the region and gave me information that the festival is celebrated annually, on the second Sunday of the Palguni month as per the Tamil calendar. Since I had ample time, I could meticulously plan my itinerary for that weekend and wait for my arrival at Kumbakonam. I had earlier visited Kumbakonam, so I included a few places that I could not cover in my previous trip. But that is for another story. For now, the focus is on ‘the Valangaiman Padai Kavadi festival.’

What is the festival about?

For a South Indian in general, one might think Kavadi festival happens in every other village during this season. So, what got me curious about this place? Well, This Kavadi festival at Valangaiman celebrates re-birth of a person. As per the local belief, people suffering from smallpox (still considered as a deadly illness in most parts of India) make a vow at the Sri Padaikatti Maha Mariamman temple to perform the Padai Kavadi if cured. Once completely cured, they believe they have seen death and returned. Therefore, the convalesced person is made to lay on a bier or a handbarrow, lifted and carried by pallbearers and the entire ceremony or the ritual of a traditional funeral is conducted as if he/she was to be dead.

There are primarily two types of biers. One, a simple yellow cloth tied to a bundle of sugarcanes or a single sturdy bamboo that is used as a cradle for kids and carried by two men on either end; second a handbarrow with two bamboo culms knitted together with coconut fronds on which an adult convalesced is carried by four men. The adult bier is made more elaborate and decorative depending upon the interest and financial status of the person offering his vow.

I was told that there are three sister goddesses living (at dedicated temples) in parallel streets of the village. The kavadi (usually body piercings or holy water carried in decorated pots on heads) is offered as vows to all the three sisters, but the Padai Kavadi (the resumption of the dead- celebrated by sleeping on a bier) is offered only to Sri Padaikatti Maha Mariamman, the second among the three sisters during the auspicious day of Palguni month.

What happens on the festival day?

The procession of the convalesced people laying on biers starts early morning, mostly to avoid the noon sun. One can find hundreds of devotees who gather either at the small shrine of Vinayakan on the banks of river Kudamurti or a dozen of makeshift temporary shrines set-up by various local priests on the dried riverbed. Here, the biers, the person supposed to lay on it and the respective kith and kin assemble for the rituals. Each person offering their vow is made to sleep on the bier after their family deity is invoked. Their eyes, nose, mouth are closed with yellow cotton fabric, hands and legs are tied together as like those of dead people lying in coffins. Holy water is sprinkled around, and all the people gathering touch the feet of the sleeping person to take his/her blessings before the pallbearers carry them for the procession towards the Mariamman temple. For as long as a convalesced person is sleeping on the bier, he/she is treated equivalent to God as they are someone who have neared death, seen God, and returned. Then, a person carrying a clay pot with burning wood and incense leads the procession and one with a pot full of water trails them, all being accompanied by drumbeats and flower throwers.

The procession circumambulates the Mariamman temple thrice and then the bier is lowered down in front of the temple. Rituals are performed, post which the person descends from it and goes inside the temple for seeing the goddess and completion of his vow. This is about the Padai Kavadi for people who survived death.

However, people who have suffered other ailments also make vows to offer a replica of the body part/ organ which has been cured through their prayers to Mariamman. One can see models in clay or silver like eyes, legs, hands etc. being sold around and offered by people at the temple depending on their cured illnesses.

Apart from this, one can also see several people with various kinds of body piercings walking on the road (which is also a form of Kavadi) and circumambulating the three sister temples to offer their vows and prayers. A man suspended from a crane with his back hooked with metal loops and circumambulated around and in front of the temple, some men with full torso pierced with lemons, long and heavy trident passed through both cheeks etc. were some of the unique and different Kavadi offerings I witnessed here. A detailed post of a dedicated festival of body piercings called ‘Mayana Kolai’ is available on my blog for further reading.

After all the kavadi offerings are over, the presiding deity, Goddess Padaikatti Maha Mariamman is then brought out of the temple by around 03.00.p.m. on a procession. Around that time, cattle (goats and sheep) and poultry donated by the devotees are tied to another central post that is erected in front of the temple and suspended up and down with their body held firmly in the center. I could not gather sufficient information about the significance of this ritual but would be glad to learn from any of my readers here.

The festival then culminates after the deity returns inside the temple.