Ayyappa

Also known as -

Ayyappen Swamy
Shasthaavu
Ruler of 18 steps
Ruler of Sabari hills.

Ayyappa of Sabarimala, or Sabari hill is a popular god among the people of Kerala State on the southern tip of India. The long slender state is sandwiched between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea a-la Chile of South America.

This state was the first in the world to have an elected communist government in 1957. Highly literate, with female literacy at +90 per cent, has a very complex society consisting of extreme liberal to highly conservative and communal segments. These segments are not the fringe sections, but very well recognised groups of considerable membership.

With 30 per cent christians, 15 per cent moslems and the rest hindus; ( 20 per cent harijans, and 20 per cent backwards, 15000 Nambudiri brahmins), it is a communal melting pot.

The devotees of this bachelor god cuts across religious lines to such an extent that he is the original 'secular' god of India. Once popular only among People of Kerala, Ayyappa has become quite a favourite god of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra. The popularisation of Ayyappa was helped by Yesudas, a well known film playback singer, a christian, who named his son Sabari after Ayyappa's abode.

Perched on the hills of Western Ghats in central Kerala, contiguous with the erstwhile Pandhalam principality, the climb to his temple is preceded by a brief visit to worship a small temple at the foothills, of Vavar swamy (local variant of Babur), a sufi saint.

The story of Ayyappa in parts resembles Ramayana, or for that matter, Helen of Troy. He is believed to be the son of the king of Pandhalam principality. The story is told of the second queen asking Ayyappa, the crown prince borne of the first queen, to go to the jungles in the nearby hill to fetch milk of tigress to treat the child of the the second queen. The next day, the populace witnessed the strange sight of Ayyappa sitting on a tigress, proceeding to the palace.

The lure of power and throne of Pandhalam could not hold him back from becoming a hermit in the Sabari hills.

Festival of Ayyappa is called Makara Vilakku, the lights of Makara month, starting on each year on Makar Sankaranti Day, Jan 11- Jan 16, day the sun enters the Capricorn sign of Zodiac according to hindu system of astronomy. (The sun enters the zodiacs around the middle of each month due to precession of equinoxes.)

The preparation for the festival starts 40 days earlier. It consists of abstinence, dietary restictions and sartorial directions to wear only black and not apply razon on the body. The 40 days' ends with a climb to the Ayyappa Temple on Sabari hills. In the last part of the climb a devotee steps over the '18 steps' to enter the sanctum sanctorum.

On Makar Sankranti day, one witnesses dancing lights on the hill range across the temple. The Rationalists, in a commando operation, caught CRPF personnel, of a para-military police force, lighting phosphorus candles to simulate the original holy lights mentioned in Ayyappa legend. The only unusual thing about Ayyappa is that another secular festival of Kerala, Onam, the harvest festival celebrating the annual visit of King Mahabali (Bali) who was banished by Vishnu in the form of Vaman (midget), is not connected with Ayyappen Swamy.