ABSTRACT

The sound of chanting begins in the far distance, breaking the stillness and darkness, as the first pirathattai devotees start to arrive, rolling around the temple with hands held clasped above their heads, bodies covered in the sandy soil. Their voices sound worn out, jolted by each turn, as they cry out ‘Arohara!’ followed by the sacred names of Murugan, Siva, Murugan’s wives and ‘vel, vel vertri vel’. Occasionally a lone pirathattai devotee lies in exhausted sleep in the sand, his hands still clasped, until gently nudged into life and movement again by a sympathetic passer-by. The numbers of devotees increase rapidly as dawn breaks and those who have travelled through the night along roads and lanes from more distance places start to arrive. The sound of chanting becomes louder and more amorphous, making it difficult to differentiate individual words. The now steady stream is joined by men and women walking swiftly towards the temple in order to ensure a place that will afford them a close view of, and by, the deity.