Thousands throng Sabarimala to witness 'Makaravilakku'

Thousands of pilgrims thronged the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple in Kerala on Saturday to witness the ‘Makaravilakku’ and offered prayers.

The ‘Makaravilakku’, considered a divine light by devotees, appeared on the Ponnambalamedu hills thrice by around 6:45 pm.

The idol of the lord Ayyappa was adorned with the ‘Tiruvabharanam’, sacred ornaments brought from Pandalam in Pathanamthitta district as procession, and ‘deeparadhana’ ritual performed. As per belief Ayyappa spent his childhood at the Pandalam palace.

The temple has been witnessing heavy rush since yesterday with many devotees staying back at the nearby premises to witness the ‘Makaravilakku’. When the ‘Makaravilakku’ appeared Ayyappa chants by devotees echoed all over the hill shrine.

The ‘Makaravilakku’ rituals also mark the culmination of the two-month-long annual pilgrimage of Sabarimala. The temple will close on January 20. Over the last two year the pilgrimage was affected owing to Covid.

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The lighting of the flame by the Kerala government, with the support of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) and forest department at Ponnamabalamedu is a continuation of the practice followed by tribal families who live near the hilltop.

Meanwhile, the temple received a revenue of Rs 310 crore till Friday. During the last two years there was a drastic fall in the revenue from the temple. It had affected the functioning of Sabarimala as well as over 1,000 temples under the Travancore Devaswom Board.

During the two-month-long pilgrimage season from November the temple was witnessing heavy rush.

On some days around one lakh devotees turned up. As crowd management was affected the government decided to restrict the number of pilgrims per day to 90,000. Entry was allowed only through the virtual queue system.

This pilgrimage season also witnessed a mishap at the cracker offering unit of Sabarimala that killed one worker. Sale of ‘Aravana payasam’ prasadam was also hit after pesticide presence was found in cardamom used for its preparation. Hence cardamom-less ‘Aravana payasam’ was being distributed since Thursday.