Ayyappa
ஐயப்பன் अय्यप्प
Also Sastha, Dharma Sastha, Manikandan, Hariharaputra, Bhutanatha.
SaivaVaishnavaVillage and folk
Who this is
Ayyappa is the son of Siva and of Vishnu in the form of Mohini, which makes him the one major deity whose whole existence is an argument against the two traditions quarrelling. He is Hariharaputra, the son of both. At Sabarimala he sits in the yogic posture with a band round his knees, a celibate ascetic, and the pilgrimage to him is the largest annual gathering in the world by some counts. The forty one day vow before it is open to anybody of any faith who keeps it, and the pilgrims address each other as Swami because the vow makes each of them him.
How to recognise them
A young man seated in the yogic posture with a cloth band, the yogapattam, round the raised knees, one hand in the gesture of teaching. A bell round the neck. In the Sastha form of the older Kerala temples he sits with Poorna and Pushkala beside him and holds a whip, and the celibacy of the Sabarimala form is particular to it.
Family and companions
Son of Siva and of Vishnu as Mohini. Raised by the childless king of Pandalam, which is why the Pandalam family still carries the jewels to Sabarimala each year. Vavar, a Muslim companion, has a mosque at the foot of the hill that pilgrims visit on the way up, and the tradition has never treated that as an anomaly.
How they are worshipped
Saturday; the Mandala season of forty one days from Vrischikam 1; Makaravilakku in Makaram.
The vratam runs forty one days: black or blue clothes, no shaving, no footwear, one meal, celibacy, and the irumudi, the two part bundle carried on the head with ghee in a coconut for the abhishekam. Saranam Ayyappa is said constantly. The eighteen steps are climbed only with the irumudi. The Mandala season and Makaravilakku are the two openings.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
The tigress and the milk
The queen of Pandalam, wanting her own son on the throne, feigned an illness that only tigress milk could cure. Manikandan, the foundling prince, went to the forest for it and came back riding a tigress with her cubs following, and the court understood who he was. He asked for nothing, told them to build him a shrine where his arrow fell, and went. The story is told to explain the eighteen steps and the forest route, and the part the tellers keep is that he was sent to die by the woman who raised him and came back without reproaching her.
Born of Hari and Hara
When Mohini came up with the nectar and the asuras handed it over, Siva asked Vishnu to show him that form again. He did, and from their meeting came a child, left on the bank of the Pampa and found by the king of Pandalam. The Saiva and the Vaishnava traditions of Kerala had been separate and argumentative; the god who is the son of both is worshipped by both, and the tradition says so openly rather than pretending it was always thus.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Kerala
- Sabarimala is the pilgrimage, with the Mandala season and the Makaravilakku, and the older Sastha temples of Achankovil and Kulathupuzha keep him in his household forms.
- Tamil Nadu
- The Tamil districts send as many pilgrims as Kerala, and the Ayyappa bhajanai mandalis meet through the forty one days in every town.
- Andhra and Telangana
- Andhra and Telangana send large groups, and the irumudi is filled at the local Ayyappa temple before the party leaves.
- Karnataka
- Karnataka pilgrims take the Erumely route, and the Sastha shrines of the Malnad keep the older form.
- Sri Lanka
- Kataragama in the south is held by Tamil Hindus to be a shrine of the same stream, visited by Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims alike.
Their days
Every one of these has a page of its own
Where to see them
From the temple directory
- Sabarimala Sri Dharmasastha Temple Sabarimala, Pathanamthitta, Kerala
- Achankovil Sree Dharma Sastha Temple Achankovil, Kollam, Kerala
- Kulathupuzha Sree Dharma Sastha Temple Kulathupuzha, Kollam, Kerala
What is said
From the mantra library