2015 Karthigai Deepam Festival, Maharadham -- Trying to get it to move

Karthigai Deepam 2015. 7th Day celebrates the processon of 5 chariots. The biggest of which is the giant wooden chariot i.e. Maharadham. This year's function took place in unceasing, sheeting rain. Below is a video I uploaded this afternoon unto You Tube. 

2015 Karthigai Deepam Festival, Maharadham Karthigai Deepam 2015. 7th Day celebrates the processon of 5 chariots. The biggest of which is the giant wooden chariot i.e. Maharadham. This year's function took place in unceasing, sheeting rain. In this video, boys are jumping on levers placed under the giant back wheels of the Chariot, in order to propel it forward. The excitment and energy of the huge crowd is apparent from the audio. Late in the evening, the Maharadham (and the 4 other accompanying chariots) completed their circumambulation of Arunachaleswarar Temple. 

In this video, boys are jumping on levers placed under the giant back wheels of the Chariot, in order to propel it forward. The excitment and energy of the huge crowd is apparent from the audio. Late in the evening, the Maharadham (and the 4 other accompanying chariots) completed their circumambulation of Arunachaleswarar Temple.

To ready the Arunachala Grace earlier posting on the Maharadham Procession, go to this link here.

Maharadham's New Garage

On my way to the dentist located off Sannidhi Street decided to make a quick detour to check out if the new "garage" has yet been completed for the Maharadham. The view and darshan of the Hill from this place is spectacular--can never take too many photographs!

Previously the Radhams (wooden chariots) for the Panchamoorthies (5 idols) have been covered with aluminum sheets and left on the side of Car Street. The sheer size of these enormous wooden chariots limit where they can be stored, but at last there has been a rethinking about exactly how they should be stored. In this respect the largest chariot used during the Deepam Festival i.e. the Maharadham has just been allocated a nice, new garage on Car Street. 

Spectacular new garage for the Maharadham

Posting the below photographs to show how devotees access the gigantic wooden chariot during the Deepam Festival. 

Climbing into the Maharadham during Deepam

Tunnel between the Yellow Building and Radham at Deepam

Devotees taking Deepam darshan before the Maharadham set off

4 Panchamoorthi Radhams await their own new garage

2014 Deepam Festival. Day Seven—Full Day: Maharadham

Yesterday, Tuesday December 2, 2014, was the seventh day of the 2014 Karthigai Deepam Festival and definitely one of the most popular. It was the day of the Maharadham, the massive wooden chariot that is pulled around the Mada Streets (four main perimeter streets surrounding the Arunachaleswarar Temple) by devotees. The men pull on the right side of the chariot and the women the left. 

One chariot each for the panchamoorthies

Lord Arunachaleswarar in His sanctum top of the Maharadham

Gents on right, ladies to the left pulling chariot on Thiruvoodal Street

Circumambulation of Temple by Maharadham takes around 12 hours

Devotees packed on roofs and every vantage point to take darshan

To propel Maharadham, lads jump on levers wedged under the back wheels

Chariots on Big Street

The weather is very unseasonal for this time of year -- lots of azure blue skies and hot toasty sun. Walking down Big Street, which is the main arterial road in front of the east side of Arunachaleswarar Temple's Raja Gopuram, its difficult to believe that Mahadeepam is just a few days away.

As always the chariots that will be used for the Maharadham Festival this coming Thursday November 14, are parked on the sides of Big Street. Traffic is less on this thoroughfare nowadays, since the one-way road system in the busy part of town was implemented.

Below are a couple of photographs of the Murugan Chariot, which has had a substantial amount of renovation work implemented this season.

Murugan Chariot parked side of Big Street

Workers inside the chariot completing renovation

There is also a short video I took a couple of days ago of Big Street with the brightly painted chariots in the distance. 

Maharadham - Big Chariot

To watch a short video of this year's Maharadham procession, check out the below video. Gents pull the chariot from the right, and ladies from the left.







So how does it all work? First off we have the sweet Rukku, the Temple elephant surveying the area. She precedes many of the chariot processions and activities throughout the Deepam Festival.






From early morning, devotees have lined up, in order to enter the top of the Big Chariot, so that they may take darshan of the gods Annamalaiyar and Unnamulai. To reach the Gods, devotees have to climb to the top of a connecting building and cross a tunnel that leads directly into the top of the Big Chariot.





In the below photograph, you can see the yellow building connecting to the Big Chariot and the tunnel corridor leading from one to the other.




Devotees are milling about on Car Street around the chariots. But it will be hours before the Big Chariot is ready to move.






The photographs give one an idea of the vast size of the chariot.The devotees at the top of the chariot with their backs to us, are facing the murtis and taking their darshan.





The massive chains that will be used to pull the vast vehicle are lying on the pavement ahead of the Chariot.





Gents will be pulling the chariot from the right side, and ladies from the left side.




The chariot needs help, specifically when going around corners. So to control the direction of the vehicle, wooden chocs are placed under the massive wheels, and a number of lads and young men, jump up and down on wooden levers.




The levers themselves are heavy, solid planks of wood, so to move them under the wheels, a system of ropes and pulleys has been devised.





Progress around the outside of the 26 acre perimeter of the Arunachaleswarar Temple, is very slow, and it will be late in the night when the Big Chariot has completed its circumambulation of the Big Temple.

Maharadham Day

Right click on all photographs to view enlargement

To get a sense of the excitement and colour of today and Maharadham, read the below narrative written about a previous Deepam.

“Three days before the lighting of the Light, it is Big Car Day.

There are several Big Cars, huge wooden carts carved with fabulous mythological figures telling all the stories, with the biggest wheels in the world; the biggest car dwarfs all the buildings in town except the giant temple towers. It is called The Big Car.



Carrying Babies on sugarcane poles

On this day parents or family members also carry their babies around the procession route. They string a sari on a sugar-cane pole which they support on their shoulders making a hammock for the child. The babies carried are ones whose parents asked Arunachala to bless them with so they are carried in thanksgiving.



Gods in procession inside Temple

The splendid bronze figures of Annamalai and Unnamalai - male and female personifications of Arunachala, are heavily garlanded and bejeweled, seated up on The Biggest Car; the towering edifice is covered with long strips of embroidered cloth and gigantic flower garlands. There are several big cars pulled before and after The Big Car; there’s a women-only one carrying Abhithakuchalambal, and there’s also a kids’ car, which trails flamboyantly at the end.

It's all stupendously awesome.


Vinayagar Radham

Years ago we used to walk in to watch the Big Car come up the incline of one main street around midday; we’d all have lunch in ashram and then everyone would make their way around to the east face of the hill to meet the gods coming up Thiruvoodal street. But now there are so many pilgrims that the schedule has extended interminably. Inauspicious times of the day intervene so the proceedings stop until the bad hour has passed, and there’s also the time when suddenly everyone goes home for lunch.

That year it was evening before the Big Car reached that street. My daughter’s two children - Hari and Ani - were very young so we secured a protected view from the balcony of a cloth shop half way down the incline, long before the towering, tottering, embroidered, garlanded Big Car - with it’s flouncing umbrella on the very top, appeared above the roofs of the shops and maneuvered itself into position for the strenuous haul up towards Arunachala.

Upon the up-roaring signal of its visibility from the crowd, Hari dropped his pile of coat-hangers and rushed to be held up over the balcony. His eyes popped, his ears flapped. Even though we’d seen it before, nothing can prepare us for the majesty of its annual sight. Below us the street was a sea of heads; all balconies and rooftops up and down the street full of faces and now that the Big Car appeared, bodies behind us pressed forward, pushing us onto the balcony rails festooned with dubious electrical fairy lights. It’s quite exciting.


The Great Maharadham

Since the divinities are coming, dedicated persons don’t wear shoes. This year we noticed one Policewoman wearing socks to protect her dainty feet from the yucky street. About five thousand pilgrims pull the cart around the temple circuit-route, ladies on one side and gents on the other. When the car stops, big chocks of heavy wood are wedged underneath the enormous wheels while the pullers take a rest and offerings are made to their majesties the gods. When ready to start again, young men with enthusiasm climb up onto the chocks with poles to steady themselves, and on signal they jump up and down on the slanted chocks until their force pushes the wheels forward, giving momentum for the pullers to haul the cart further up the street.

Looking down into the crowd below as the cart passed beneath us, we were treated to a seething mass of human energy - drums beating in time to muscles, bystanders shouting encouragement, enormous wheels slowly turning, the carving on the cart creaking, embroidery panels blowing in the wind, garlands wavering about, lucky little boys sitting up high lowering cloth carry bags on strings for people to send up coconuts and flowers, the Brahmin priests looking down impassively.

It’s the Brahmins particularly – the extravagant courtly costumes, the imperious faces staring down – that convey the true sense of the gods as majesties: as the most important personages in our world, out on a tour of the town, to be saluted by their adoring subjects. And a very large number of their adoring subjects are sweating, straining at the edge in the effort required to pull them. The Big Car teeters its way uphill until the momentum runs out. The chocks are wedged in again. Everyone breathes.

It will take about ten hours to circumnavigate the temple.”

[By Apeetha Arunagiri]

Deepam, a Saint and a District Collector

The below is a very nice story about the famous saint Isanya Desikar, and how he helped his British devotee Ayton, overcome dangers in his efforts to safely attend a Deepam Festival. If you wish to read more about Isanya Desikar, go to this link here.


The story goes thus:-

Isanya Desikar, whose math is located just outside Tiruvannamalai on the old pradakshina road, was a distinguished yogi who, like many before and after him, felt the spiritual call of Arunachala. He was born in 1750 in a small village called Rayavelur in northern Tamil Nadu. He came and settled at the foot of Arunachala only late in his life, but nevertheless, by virtue of his intense and personal relationship with Arunachaleswara, he is regarded as one of the major saints of Arunachala.

Isanya Desikar had a western devotee, who is now recalled by the name of Ayton. He was the then District Collector for the region that extended from Tiruvannamalai to Vriddhachalam. Ayton had heard about the greatness of Isanya Desikar and approached him in the hope of getting a cure from the tuberculosis from which he had been suffering for many years. Isanya Desikar smiled and after a brief pause spat on the ground. The moment he spat, Ayton was cured of the disease. Ayton then spoke to the holy man with both trepidation and devotion. 'Swami, I have recently acquired a large amount of land, I would like to offer your holiness as much as you need. It can be a permanent endowment in your name.'

Isanya Desikar smiled and asked tauntingly, 'Will your land yield crops even during a drought?' Then, pointing his finger towards Arunachaleswara and Apeetakuchamba, he added, 'Here is a householder with two children and a large family. It is proper to give him any amount of land, but it is not proper to gift it to me, a sannyasin.'

Ayton took leave of him but returned on many occasions. He got into the habit of addressing him reverentially and affectionately as 'Tata', which means 'grandfather'. It is said that before he began any new project he would always mediate on Isanya Desikar and invoke his blessing by saying, 'Tata, please lead me in this work. It is your work.' At Deepam Festivals Ayton would take the lead in dragging the huge temple chariot through the streets of Tiruvannamalai. However, before moving the chariot for the first time he would pick up one of the ropes and exclaim loudly: 'Tata, you hold the rope and lead us!' The local people were all astounded that such a prominent British official should have such devotion towards a naked sannyasin.

Ayton made it a point always to attend and lead this annual festival, but one year he found himself stranded by floods on the southern side of the River Pennar just before the beginning of the festival. Knowing that he was expected to be at Arunachala to start the chariot on its journey, he called out to his mount: 'Horse, I must see Tata and I must also get the Deepam Festival started. Think of Tata and cross the river!' Without a moment's delay or hesitation, the horse leapt into the raging torrent of water and effortlessly waded to the other side. None of the other people who were stranded dared to follow for they were all convinced that it would be suicidal to enter the surging waters.

At the moment when Ayton put his faith in Tata and leapt into the water, Isanya Desikar opened his eyes after a long meditation and stretched out his hand in a southerly direction. When one of his disciples asked what he was doing, he replied, 'If someone falls into a river, should we not save him?'

Ayton arrived safely and took Isanya Desikar's blessings to start the festival. When the news of Ayton's spectacular river crossing and Isanya Desikar's role in it spread among the Deepam crowds, many of them came to the north-eastern side of the hill to see the man who had been responsible for the miracle. Several of the new visitors turned out to be mature seekers who were looking for guidance from a Guru. Isanya Desikar accepted some as disciples, had a small thatched shed built to accommodate them and gave instruction by writing a guide to liberation entitled Jnana Kattalai.