As being a "Madurai-karan" I would like to share our Madurai's Chithirai Thiruvizha. This thiruvizha is being annually celebrated in Madurai.
This festival is been celebrated in the Month of April ( Especially, in the Tamil month Chithirai). The festival gets started on the 5th blooming day of the Moon (Valarpirai, in Tamil. (Crescent) ) of the Tamil month Chithirai, starting with a Flag hoist (Kodi yetram) in both Meenakshi amman Temple and Azhagar Temple.
The list of events in this festival are,
1) KodiYetram, As we know every celebration starts with a Flag hoist or a Flag break, our Chithirai Thiruvizha also gets started with a Flag hoist in both the Temples.
2) Pattabisekam, It is the coronation ceremony of Goddess Meenakshi( one of Goddess Shakthi's (wife of lord Shiva) incarnation ) thus she takes the whole city under her control and protect the citizens from every problems.
3) Dikvijayam, This ceremony is the war that is been held between the Lord Shiva( Here, Sundaraswarar one his incarnation) and Goddess Meenakshi, were Goddess Meenakshi falls in love with the lord shiva and gets defeated by lord Shiva and surrender herself and the city in his protection.
4) Meenakshi-Sundaraswar Thirukalyanam, is the most important event of this festival where Goddess Meenakshi and Lord Sundaraswar gets married in front of all the Madurai people.
5) Therrotam, The Chariot Festival where the newly married couple Goddess Meenakshi and lord Sundaraswar comes in a chariot to bless the people.
6) Ethir sevai, from this ceremony celebration will be in the Madurai north where the brother of Goddess Meenakshi Lord Azhagar( Incarnation of Lord Vishnu) comes to witness his sister's marriage from Azhagar malai.
7) Azhagar Vaigai Elenthuarulal, in this ceremony lord Azhagar gets bathed in the river Vaigai in a disguise as a thief (That is why known as Kalazhagar) and gets angry by coming to know that her sister's marriage got over before his arrival and moves towards Vandiyur without crossing the river.
From left, Meenakshi Thirukalyanam, Azhagar Ethirsevai, Kalazhagar Vaigai elenthuarulal.
As you can see this festival is a collaboration of Saivism(Followers of Lord Shiva) and Vaishnavite(Followers of Lord Vishnu). As we all know,in olden days there was always a clash among these two groups of people, where our Chithirai thiruvizha stood as a great support in uniting these two groups.
Actually, this festival was two different festivals that was been celebrated in two different months, Where, the incarnation of lord Shakthi Meenakshi comes out from the yagnya done by the king Malayadhwaja Pandian, who took care of Meenakshi as his own daughter and taught her with all the battlefield knowledge with which Goddess Meenakshi seized all over the world and atlast when she went to Kailash to capture the Kailash which was ruled by Lord Shiva. Goddess Meenakshi gets defeated by lord Shiva and fell love in the beauty of lord shiva and lord Shiva too marries her as he promised. This festival was actually celebrated in the Tamil month Maasi.
Then there was a Saint Mandooka who was busy in bathing and forgot to wish the Rishi Dhurvasa, who is well-known for his angry. Dhurvasa took this as an insult and cursed the Mandooka to be a frog. When Mandooka apologized for his mistake to Dhurvasa, he asked Mandooka to go and worship in the vaigai river to lord Azhagar who will again transform him into the human form, this is why lord Azhagar comes to Vaigai river and removes the curse on Mandooka and shows him all the ten avatars of Lord Vishnu as Mandooka requested.
After few decades, the king Thirumalainaikar who was ruling the Madurai city saw the clash of Saivism and Vaishnavite as a threat to his city, and found that the Meenakshi festival in Maasi month was not properly attend by his people due to harvesting of crops. Considering all these situations he decided to combine these two festivals in the Tamil month of Chithirai. As we can see still this festival is been celebrated more enthusiastically till now and that peace between Saivism and Vaishnavite is been maintained.
Celebrating these kind of festivals is not only to maintain the culture it is to get peace of mind from all the work pressures we go through and get a chance to mingle with all our family as one atleast for once in a year. And I'm bit cocky that we will surely continue to celebrate such festivals as a one without seeing any kind of differentiation among people, because we all know UNITY IS STRENGTH.
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