The Making of a South Indian Pilgrimage Centre

The festival season that takes place from the Malayalam month of Vrischikam to the beginning of Makaram, between November and January in the Gregorian calendar, sees massive groups of mostly male black-clad pilgrims converging upon the hill temple of Sabarimala in Kerala. At the time of writing in December 2023, about 18 lakh people have visited the temple, with numbers only set to grow before the Makaravilakku festival in January. The pilgrimage this year was marked by widespread chaos, as bad weather conditions along with the large crowds made it difficult for state officials to manage the flow of pilgrims efficiently.

On the 13th of December, the Yuva Morcha of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led a protest march in Thiruvananthapuram over the alleged deliberate mismanagement of the Sabarimala temple by the Communist Party-led Kerala government, with the state unit of the party claiming to “..[safeguard] Sanatana Dharma from those who seek to obliterate it”¹. This came amid a heavy controversy, where the main opposition party in the state, the Indian National Congress, as well as large crowds of devotees, expressed dissatisfaction with the poor crowd control, the effects of which were felt even at the outlying towns near the hill.

The bone of contention at the centre of this controversy is the Sabarimala temple, which is today one of India’s most-visited pilgrimage sites. Large groups consisting mainly of men on the journey are a common sight in peninsular India today, and the pilgrimage has been drawing an increasing number of visitors over the past few years. Yet the temple itself finds no mention in early works of Tamil devotional poetry, or in any Sanskrit canons. Nor does the deity Ayyappan appear in the corpus of Purana literature, or even in the works of South Indian bhakti preachers and poet-saints. Royal patronage was foreign to the temple until as late as the 1960s (when a large donation was made by the royal family of erstwhile Travancore state), and even the first textual mentions of the temple date to the latter half of the 19th century. The rise to prominence of the temple is intimately linked to political processes that shaped the modernisation of the territories of present-day Kerala.

By the beginning of the 19th century, the territories that make up modern Kerala were divided between British-ruled South Canara and Malabar districts under the Madras Presidency, the small French colony of Mahé, and the princely states of Cochin and Travancore². The 19th century saw the beginnings of development of the conception of a Malayali identity and the idea of a political entity for Malayalam-speaking people, which gave rise to the Aikya Kerala movement of the 1920s and culminated in the creation of the state of Kerala in 1956. The period was characterised by the standardisation of the Malayalam language and the growth of print culture, as well as the development of a Malayali identity that cut through caste and religious lines, although it was ironically born at a time of greater community assertion on those very lines. The flourishing of Sabarimala as a pilgrimage centre may have owed its popularity, at least in part, to this development of the Malayali identity, with the fact that Ayyappan-worship occurred mostly in the territories of modern-day Kerala leading to the growing popularity of his cult among the consolidated Malayali people.

The popularity of Sabarimala is due to other factors as well, such as the casteless nature of the pilgrimage drawing the attention of Dravidian movement leaders in Madras and leading to its spread among the Tamil population, as well as communal flare-ups around the temple that mobilised Hindu groups around it and helped to draw it further into the Hindu fold. This thesis will argue that Sabarimala, which began as a place of worship to many communities that lived in the Western Ghats of Kerala, began to be integrated into the mainstream of Malayali society as a consequence of regional identity-building in the late 19th and early 20th century, and became a ‘Malayali god’ to the exclusion of Adivasi groups such as the Mala Arayans who historically were heavily involved in the cult. Concurrent with this, and more visible since the second half of the 20th century, is the integration of the temple into the Hindu mainstream, with the association of the deity with vegetarianism, the predominance of Tantric worship and the political assertion of Hindu identity around the temple during times of unrest being some examples of the ‘Hinduisation’ of the deity. The BJP’s quote at the beginning of this section presenting their ‘protection’ of Sabarimala as an aspect of the safeguarding of ‘Sanatana Dharma’ shows the extent to which the temple has become a symbol of political Hinduism.

Due to constraints in time and lack of access to certain sources, some possible lines of argument have only been treated in passing and many have not even been mentioned. The tradition of paying homage to the Muslim saint Vavar, oral traditions around Ayyappan as a historical figure and the sacred geography related to that tradition (such as the Arthunkal Basilica, whose 17th-century vicar Giacomo Fenicio was said to be a friend of Ayyappan’s, or the martial Cheerappanchira Panicker family who were said to have trained Ayyappan in Kalari) have not been pursued, as that would require fieldwork and engagement with locally published and propagated pieces of literature, for which there was no scope during the present period of study. Similarly, the choice of primary sources was restricted to what was available online, as several sources would only be available in regional archives and libraries, which it was not possible to visit. Owing to these factors, this thesis can be seen as an outline of a greater argument which the author would like to pursue in the future, given the availability of time and resources. In certain places footnotes have been included to draw attention to some stories or to mention sources used in that section.

The thesis is divided into four sections, besides the introduction and conclusion. The first section deals with the process of the pilgrimage in the modern day as well as a brief description of the sacred geography of the Sabarimala hill. The second section touches upon the development of Ayyappan as a deity, and of the origin of the status of Sabarimala as the primary centre of worship of Ayyappan. The next section deals with the development of the idea of Kerala and the conception of Ayyappan within the framework of the literate Malayali public sphere in the early 20th century, with reference to the Aithihyamala. The final section covers events until the present day regarding the political mobilisation of Hindu organisations around the temple. The conclusion, besides summing up the arguments, will also deal with avenues for further research around the topic. The appendix deals with theories about certain matters around Sabarimala, which would have to be corroborated or refuted by further research.

The well-known and highly visible journey of devotees from their homes to the hill temple is only a part of the pilgrimage, as the process of becoming a pilgrim starts several weeks before they leave their home. The Sabarimala pilgrimage can largely be divided into the māladhāraṇaṃ, which is the initiation ceremony that commences the required vṛtaṃ (oath of renunciation), followed by the keṭṭuniṟakkal ceremony which kicks off the journey, and finally the yātra (journey), which has several stops and concludes with the pilgrim’s darśanaṃ (viewing) of the deity at the temple itself. These ceremonies are not guided by reference to any particular sacred text, but are passed down as oral knowledge from veteran pilgrims to the new initiates. The oral nature of the cult means that there are variations not only in the mythos, but also in the journey itself. We shall now examine each of the aforementioned stages in more detail.

The Sabarimala pilgrimage is communal in nature, consisting of groups of pilgrims led by a gurusvāmi. A gurusvāmi is a veteran pilgrim who has completed the journey at least five times, and must take on the responsibility of arranging accommodations and other facilities for the others for the duration of the pilgrimage. The gurusvāmi may be an elder in the family or some other acquaintance leading a small group of people who already know each other, but there are also famous gurusvāmis who lead large groups of pilgrims. Those who are embarking on the pilgrimage for the first time are called kaṇṇisvāmi (lit. virgin Swami).

The māladhāraṇaṃ is usually a public or semi-public ceremony which is meant to take place in a nearby temple or the home of the gurusvāmi. The latter situation is more likely if the gurusvāmi in question is the head of a large group of pilgrims, or well-known locally. Regardless of the location, all parties going to the temple or house must bathe and don clothes of either black, dark blue or saffron colour, the former being the most popular. Following this, the gurusvāmi chants a specific mantra and then places a māla (rosary) around the pilgrim’s neck and blesses him. The māla has 108 rudraksha beads (108 considered an auspicious number), and a pendant of Ayyappan. From this stage on, the pilgrim is considered to have undertaken the vṛtaṃ, and may not remove the chain until they return from Sabarimala.

They must only wear the aforementioned colours of black, blue or saffron as far as possible, and observe various restrictions, including abstinence from meat, intoxicants, foul language, non-religious social gatherings, and any form of sexual activity or thought. They must devote as much of their time as possible to prayer and religious contemplation. They also are not permitted to cut their hair or trim their beards. Some details vary; for example some believe that they must cook and eat their own food during this period, while others consider it sufficient to eat food prepared by anyone in the household, provided that the person bathed immediately before cooking (a usual custom in other vṛtaṃs in Kerala). Regardless, the avoidance of meat and intoxicants, the centrality of prayer and contemplation, and the maintenance of celibacy are paramount.

After the māladhāraṇaṃ, all the pilgrims forgo their given names and nicknames, instead being addressed simply as ‘Swami’ or ‘Ayyappa’, by anyone they encounter. From the moment they wear the māla until they have darśanaṃ of the idol at Sabarimala, they are considered to be a manifestation of the deity himself. Furthermore, they must treat all living beings as manifestations of Ayyappan. The practice of wearing similar clothes and the absence of names makes it difficult for one to judge a person based on their caste or religion, thus mitigating discrimination. The above restrictions must be followed for a certain duration, which again varies from place to place, although forty, forty-one or fifty days are the most commonly accepted. The reason behind the duration of the vṛtaṃ is unclear, with most sources consulted either not giving an explanation and a few giving the functionalist explanation that the rigours of the period prepare a pilgrim for the difficult journey.

Following the vṛtaṃ, the pilgrims reconvene at a temple or the guruswami’s house for the ceremony marking the beginning of the journey, termed the keṭṭŭniṟakkal (lit. filling of the compartments). The irumuṭi is a cotton bag with two compartments which the pilgrim is to place upon their head during the journey. The munmuṭi (frontal compartment) consists of the offerings that the pilgrim is to present at the hill, while the pinmuṭi (back compartment) holds their personal items.

The most important offering placed in the irumuṭi is called the neyŭtēṅṅa, which is a coconut filled with ghee. A hole is made in the coconut and the water drained out, to be filled with ghee and plugged shut. The neyŭtēṅṅa, along with another coconut and other offerings such as rice, pepper and camphor, are placed in the minmuṭi. The pinmuṭi is filled with the pilgrim’s personal effects and grooming tools. After the irumuṭi is placed on the pilgrim’s head, they immediately set off on the journey, and are not supposed to turn back or interact with their friends and family who may have come to see them off. Accordingly, the pilgrim’s relations cannot show any sadness either, and must see the pilgrim as a manifestation of Ayyappan rather than someone they know.

Customarily, the pilgrim is not meant to wear shoes and must travel on foot all the way from their home to the temple, stopping for the night only at temples, public rest houses or homes where people are willing to house and feed them. On the journey, they would also stop at other important pilgrimage centres, and these places depend on the route taken. For instance, a pilgrim group setting out from Kochi would likely stop at the major temple towns of Chottanikkara, Vaikom and Ettumanoor. At length, all pilgrims would reach the town of Erumeli in Kottayam district, 45 kilometres away from Sabarimala.

Erumeli is the site of another Ayyappan temple (Erumeli Sri Dharmashasthavu Temple) and the Vavar Paḷḷi (masjid), both important sites that must be visited by every pilgrim. The town is believed to be the site where Ayyappan slew the demoness Mahishi. Over here the dance known as pēṭṭatuḷḷal takes place. The pilgrims paint their own, and each others’ faces with colourful dyes and carry sticks over their shoulders, dancing to the accompaniment of traditional instruments while chanting the meaningless phrase ‘Svāmi tintakatom, Ayyappa tintakatom’ to keep rhythm. During this event, the kaṇṇisvāmis are given wooden arrows. The pilgrims dance from the temple to Vavar Paḷḷi, where they are welcomed by the mosque committee and circumambulate the building. Following this, they return to the temple to seek Ayyappan’s blessings to begin the final leg of the journey, which is the trek to Sabarimala itself.

About four kilometres from Erumeli is a stream known as Perur Thodu, from where the incline of the trek begins. Ten kilometres on from there is Kalaketti, where it is believed that Shiva came to witness Ayyappan’s fight with Mahishi. Ahead from there is the Azhutha river, from which bank the pilgrims pick up a single stone, and after their ascent of the nearby Azhutha hill, they throw the stones down into a depression there. From there they proceed to Inchiparakotta and Karimala. This hill presents a gruelling five kilometre trek, at the summit of which the pilgrims rest and give offerings to three deities whose shrines are present there. After descending from Karimala, the pilgrims arrive at the holy Pampa river, at the foot of Sabarimala. This is a longer and more arduous route taken by the especially devout. Many pilgrims simply travel by road until the Pampa river and ascend from there.

At the Pampa, before ascending Sabarimala itself, the pilgrims take a bath and pray for their ancestors. Here, the pilgrims begin the trek, usually at dawn or dusk to avoid the harsh sun, while chanting Ayyappan’s name in chorus. From the Pampa’s banks, the pilgrims climb up the steep Neelimala hill, and rest at its crown of Appachimedu. Here, they offer rice balls to the bhūtagaṇas, who are said to be spirits in Ayyappan’s service. From there, they reach Sabari Peedam, which is believed to be the place where Rama met the ascetic woman Sabari.

As they move on, they reach a location called Sharamkuthi, where the kaṇṇisvāmis throw down the wooden arrows which they were given at Erumeli. Shortly ahead from there, the pilgrims reach the temple. They see the 18 steps (patineṭṭāmpaṭi) leading up to the shrine, which is also known as the sannidānaṃ. A coconut will be broken before they climb up the stairs. In the past, pilgrims would break the coconut on the step corresponding to the number of times they made the trip, and one who had come for the 18th time was permitted to plant a coconut tree near the temple. However, this practice has been stopped since the steps were covered in gold in 1986. The steps remain an important part of the worship, having nearly as much importance as the idol itself in the popular imagination of the site.

Having ascended the steps, the pilgrim has darśanaṃ of Ayyappan. The neyŭtēṅṅa is offered at the shrine and the ghee is used to anoint Ayyappan’s idol. On the way down, they must pay their respects to Malikappurathamma, the goddess whose shrine is below the sannidānaṃ. She is believed to be the true form of the demoness Mahishi, whose curse was relieved when Ayyappan slew her.

Women of menstruating age are not allowed on the pilgrimage, although pre-menarche girls and post-menopausal women are. In practice, this means that almost all the pilgrims are men of various ages. It has been proposed by Filippo and Caroline Osella that the pilgrimage forms a hyper-masculine space, where a community of men band together in identifying with the hunting deity Ayyappan as they trek through the dense forest. This sense of male fraternity and the perception of adventure during the physically demanding trek may be one of the reasons for its sustained popularity today; urban middle class men may be attracted to Sabarimala as a socially-sanctioned way to escape the demands of modern life in the conservative milieu of Kerala.

The conventions I have mentioned above are today considered a more strict, rigorous version of the pilgrimage. Owing to various commitments in modern life and the conveniences that have sprung up around Sabarimala, the pilgrimage is often greatly contracted, with the vṛtaṃ period being reduced or relaxed according to the situation of the pilgrim, or even done away with altogether. In some cases, the māladhāraṇaṃ and keṭṭuniṟakkal may happen on the same night and the pilgrim may leave for Sabarimala and return the very next day, not necessarily with a guruswami. The improvement of road access, with asphalt roads leading all the way to the Pampa river at Sabarimala’s foot, means that many people take vehicles straight to the Pampa and make the ascent from there rather than take the more arduous and taxing Erumeli route. As in many other pilgrimage sites in India, tour packages have sprung up around Sabarimala, with both the Kerala and Tamil Nadu governments, as well as several private companies offering group tours to the temple from various major cities. These tours generally last three to four days and take pilgrims in air-conditioned buses to Sabarimala through major pilgrimage sites on the way, and back.

While there are several variations to the story of Sabarimala in the present day, there is a version that is widely spread and accepted by pilgrims today, which may be narrated as follows.

During the Pālāḻimantanaṃ (churning of the milk-ocean by the Devas and Asuras, a story from the Vishnu Purana), a number of both beneficial and harmful things emanated from the ocean. At length, the goal of both the Devas and Asuras emerged- a jar of amṛtam, which gives eternal vigour when consumed. Greed overwhelmed the minds of both parties, and they rushed toward the jar, ready to fight. To intervene, Vishnu took the form of the otherworldly beauty Mohini. Her appearance was so beautiful, so flawless, that all those present could not think of anything besides her. She told them that she would serve the amṛtam to everyone in equal portions on the condition that they keep their eyes closed so as not to arouse envy in the order of distribution. In order to preserve the balance of the universe, she distributed the entire contents to the Devas. The Asuras realised too late that they were tricked, but could not match up to the newly invigorated Devas in a fight and were forced to flee. Meanwhile, Shiva upon seeing the form of Mohini was overcome with lust, and they produced a child. The gods bestowed the child upon Rajashekaran, the devout ruler of the small kingdom of Pandalam (whose royal family is said to be an offshoot of the Pandyan dynasty that had migrated to Kerala). The king adopted him and named him Manikantan (jewelled-throat).

The childless king declared Manikantan his heir and gave him a royal education, and eventually he grew up to become a master in martial arts. The prime minister grew jealous, as he was counting on the king to die childless so that he could seize power. After a few years, the queen happened to give birth to her own child. The prime minister poisoned her ear, saying that her child could never be king as long as Manikantan was the heir. They decided to hatch a plot in collaboration with the court physician. The queen feigned illness and had the physician declare that the only cure for her condition would be the milk of a tigress. As they had expected, Manikantan volunteered to enter the jungle to retrieve it, despite the king’s protests. On the way, he fought and befriended an Arab Muslim pirate named Vavar and a ‘tribal’ named Karuppasamy, who helped him defeat Mahishi, a demoness who took the form of a buffalo. From Mahishi’s corpse arose the goddess Ganga, who explained to Manikantan his divine origin as Ayyappan, and offered to marry him in gratitude. Ayyappan declined, and returned to Pandalam on the back of the tigresses. The court and people there realised his divinity, and the queen and prime minister seeked his forgiveness. The king insisted upon building him a temple, and Ayyappan shot an arrow in the direction of the hill where he slew Mahishi. It is said that the Sabarimala temple of today was constructed by the king upon the spot where the arrow fell.

There are several variations, but Ayyappan’s birth of Vishnu and Shiva, his adoption by the ruler of Pandalam, the queen’s jealousy and his quest to bring tigress milk, followed by his slaying of Mahishi, befriending of Vavar and subsequent return to Pandalam to reveal his divinity form a common thread in contemporary versions of the story. There have also been several traditions and accounts about Sabarimala which don’t enjoy as much currency today.

In this account, Sabarimala Ayyappan is placed firmly in Puranic cosmology and Brahmanical mythos, narrating his origin with the backdrop of a well-known incident from the Vishnu Purana. It simultaneously roots the deity in the land of Kerala, while acknowledging the influences the region has received from other sources. Vavar may represent the important Middle Eastern trading networks and Kerala’s position in the world of the Indian Ocean, while Karuppaswami may represent the historical influence of Adivasis over the shrine. Despite the openness to such influence, both these deities only play supporting roles to Ayyappan, creating the impression of a culture of Kerala that is centred upon a Brahmanical society that granted social space to other communities. This serves to uphold the Brahminical account of Kerala’s creation, namely that the deity Parashuraman drew the land out of the sea and granted it to the Brahmins. The syncretism around Sabarimala today is touted as a sign of the historical tolerance of Kerala society, although it presupposes a society where Brahmanism was the first ideological arrival to the land and which granted subsequent settlers a place contingent on their subordination to the Brahmanical order.

The exact origins of Ayyappan as a deity cannot be said for certain, although historical references suggest that he was a hunting deity mainly worshipped in the Western Ghats of Kerala and Kodagu. Mentions of a deity named Ayyappan or Ayyan have been found in literature and inscriptions in Kerala since about the tenth century. For instance, the c.11th century Thiruvalla temple copper plates, which are some of the earliest Malayalam inscriptions, mention the assignment of four nāḻi (an archaic measure of around 200 grams) of rice as an offering to the god Ayyappan, who is one among many sub-deities worshipped in the temple complex³. His iconography is also found in temple mural paintings, which depict him as being dark-skinned and well-ornamented, usually astride a horse, while engaged in a hunt alongside human companions and dogs⁴.

The fact that Ayyappan finds a place in Hindu temples even from as early as the 11th century makes it likely that the transformation of Sabarimala itself into a Hindu pilgrimage site wasn’t simply a process of caste Hindus ‘stealing’ the temple from the Adivasi population, but of a site of shared devotion between several communities being appropriated over time by worshippers with greater social and political capital. Ayyappan seems to have been considered a hill deity, with dwellers of the Western Ghats forming the core of his cult.

Those living in the region paid homage to him across community lines. For instance the late 19th-century Malabar Manual mentions that after hunting, Nair communities who lived in the hills of Northern Kerala would divide their kills in a specific area of the jungle that was consecrated in the name of ‘…the hunting deity Ayyan or Ayyappan”⁵. Similarly, copper plate inscriptions claimed to be from 1792 CE in the hands of a Muslim family in Erumeli associated with Vavar mention them offering goats to sacrifice (as part of a guruti ritual) at the hill during the Makaravilakku festival⁶. Adivasi communities also revered Ayyappan as a god of the hunt and of the forest; for example the Kunde Habba festival celebrated by the Yeravas and Kurubas of Kodagu is based on the belief that Ayyappan was once their leader, and that he abandoned them when he fell in love with the goddess Bhadrakali⁷. These examples, coming from different geographical regions, show the prevalence of Ayyappa-worship in the hills among different communities.

However, Sabarimala’s role as the nexus of Ayyappa-worship is a much later development. The Memoirs of Cochin and Travancore Survey 1816-20 presents one of the first verifiable accounts of Sabarimala. On 14th February 1818, according to the text, the surveyors arrived at the town of Pundalum (Pandalam), where there was to be a festival at the Ayyappan temple⁸. The given date of 14th February is approximately a month too late for it to be the famed Makaravilakku festival that is celebrated at the temple today that takes place on Makara Sankranthi, which fell on January 12th in 1818⁹. This could suggest that the celebration of the annual festival was either moved from another date to the day of Makara Sankranthi following Brahmanical control over the temple, or that the temple in question was not Sabarimala, but the Ayyappan temple at Pandalam. The account mentions the temple, although being “… small is much celebrated on account of its antiquity…¹⁰”, suggesting that the temple structure was already existent for at least a few years before their visit. The extent of its popularity, however, seems limited, as the idol was placed on an elephant “…with ornaments neither splendid nor costly…¹¹”, and was seemingly attended only by surrounding villages that came under the rule of the Pandalam rajas¹².

This brief account of the British surveyors seems to be the first published source to definitely mention an Ayyappan temple in the region, although it is unclear whether it refers to Sabarimala or to the temple of Ayyappan at Pandalam itself. Even if the temple were in the town of Pandalam, the reference to ‘Iyapa the mountain deity¹³’ makes it seem likely that it was linked specifically to Sabarimala, since the Pandalam royal family is said to have a special bond with the deity at Sabarimala.

Another 19th-century mention of the temple is found in the 1874 census of the Travancore state, which says that the census was conducted at a time of the year avoiding “…the usual rounds of Oolsavams [temple festivals] and ceremonies throughout the important Pagodas of the country, days of pilgrimage to holy shrines such as Cranganore, Chowrymala, Ariencavoo, Mundakad and others…¹⁴”. This is the first modern source in the author’s knowledge to mention Sabarimala by name (rendered as Chowrymala), and it implies that it was at least locally known well enough that those attending the annual festival presented a not-insignificant chunk of the census population in the locality.

Perhaps the first published account with a more substantial account of Sabarimala is found in Mateer’s Native Life in Travancore (1883), where a folktale of the Mala Arayan community of the Western Ghats is related. Mateer mentions that the Mala Arayans of the village of Erumapara used to consult an ‘oracle-revealer’ named Talanani, who was the centrepiece of possession rituals. Talanani was mentioned as being dedicated to “…the hunting-deity Ayyappan, whose chief shrine is in Savarimala (sic)…¹⁵”. The pilgrimage to Sabarimala is described as being done in large groups out of fear of wild animals, and it is implied that the pilgrims would walk from their respective villages to the temple. Talanani is said to have been killed by members of the neighbouring Chogan community in a fight, and tigers- described as ‘Ayyappan’s dogs’- are said to have dug up his body following which an elephant had placed it where the Mala Arayan villagers could see it. Subsequently the Chogan village was eradicated by a smallpox epidemic, which was believed to have been a curse sent by Shastha (considered to be the same as Ayyappan). At this stage, we see that the cult of Ayyappan seems to have become firmly tied to Sabarimala, at least in the hill regions around Pandalam.

It may be assumed that it was at least from about the last quarter of the 19th century that the footfall to Sabarimala and Brahminical influence began to expand. For instance, folk accounts from the late 19th century refer to the presence of veḷicappādŭ at Sabarimala¹⁶. A veḷicappādŭ is an oracle who performs possession rituals, usually at temples to the goddess Bhagavathy, and the presence of one at Sabarimala may suggest the beginning of a process of acculturation into the mainstream of Kerala Hinduism. The veḷicappādŭ may have replaced an oracle from the Mala Arayan community, like Talanani mentioned in the previous paragraph. Around this time, the responsibility for rituals at the temple was also said to have been taken over from the Mala Arayans by members of the Thazhamon Madom, a Brahmin priestly family that still serves as the head priests of the temple today¹⁷.

By 1901 we are presented with an account of the pilgrimage in more familiar terms. The census of Travancore in that year mentions the status of ‘Shastha’ (which Ayyappan is also called) as a mountain deity, and lists Sabarimala as his chief temple. Pilgrims are said to undergo abstinence for forty-one days, call themselves ‘Ayyappans’, and trek until the crest of the hill, with especially large crowds in the Makaram month. ‘More than 10,000 people’ are said to go on the pilgrimage each year¹⁸. A similar description and footfall is given in the 1906 Travancore State Manual¹⁹, and the association of Adivasi groups with the shrine is also mentioned.

The only known inscription in the premises of the temple dates to 1910, and mentions the installation of the golden Ayyappan idol of the iconography that is currently there, with him squatting with a band around his knee and the right arm raised in blessing²⁰. Prior to this, the sanctum may have contained a bronze image similar to those used by Mala Arayans to represent their ancestors, or an aniconic stone representation²¹. While the details about the installation of this new idol is unclear, it points to a greater footfall of pilgrims at the shrine, and very likely increasing monetary patronage as Sabarimala became more popular.

Ayyappan, likely having origins as a hunting deity worshipped in the hills by communities living there, came to be associated with Sabarimala as his primary place of worship by the late 19th century. His growing popularity probably led to a greater acculturation to the religious practices of Brahmanism in Kerala, and also earned the temple monetary patronage. This process largely coincided with a period of social reform among most segments of society in Malayalam-speaking areas, which also had an effect on the temple’s popularity.

Throughout Malabar, Cochin and Travancore, the 19th century onwards was a period of upheaval, as society in those regions was faced with European education, missionary activity and social reform movements. In Travancore, the historically privileged landowning Nair castes felt threatened by the dominance of non-Malayali Brahmins (particularly of Tamil, Marathi and Konkani background) in the administration of the state. Organisations such as the Malayali Sabha (founded 1884) in Thiruvananthapuram were formed with the aim of reforming and modernising ‘Malayali’ society, although in reality their focus was on the welfare of the Nairs²². Similar associations and publications were also founded among the Ezhava, Syrian Christian and Mappila Muslim communities. However, the sense of Nair community assertion in particular was driven by a heavy anti-Brahmin sentiment, in the face of which they presented themselves as representing the interests of ‘native’ Malayali people²³.

Such differentiation based on community lines is common in Kerala, where religious identification forms an important pole of social identity, even in the absence of actual religious belief or practice. Certain mannerisms, food habits, turns of phrase and dialects are associated with different religious communities, and a member of one community transgressing these boundaries may be considered unusual or even taboo. Religion has played a huge role in the construction of modernity in Kerala, with community-building and public assertion of religion being vital lines of organisation for social reform. In the context of Malayali communities in the 19th century, print culture had a role in the dissemination of religious texts and ideas of religious reform, as well as standardising Malayalam and building a new regional identity based on language. These two trends led to a seemingly paradoxical situation where religious and caste communities began to grow more conscious of their differences and started to mobilise on community lines, while also growing to identify more strongly with the Malayalam language as a common cultural marker across the territories of Cochin, Travancore and Malabar. The example of the Travancore Nairs in the previous paragraph is an example where they highlighted their Nair identity while acknowledging their position as a part of a larger Malayali society, which they claimed to be ultimately safeguarding from Brahmins who were ‘outsiders’ to the area.

Contemporary to this trend of identity-building, a retired Travancore government official named P. Govinda Pillai published a work titled Malayāḷabhāṣacharitraṃ (History of the Malayalam language) in 1881. He had written the book in order to fill the gap which he saw for a concise history of his mother tongue, and to prove the beauty and highly developed status of Malayalam²⁴. He also considered Malayalam to be lacking authoritative texts about subjects such as poetics and rhetoric, which he believed were vital for any developed language. Texts such as these would give the modern Malayali a way to define a characteristically ‘Malayali’ way of thinking about the language instead of having to borrow from Sanskritic traditions or more recent standardisation efforts by European missionaries²⁵.

Govinda Pillai was one among many scholars of the era who were appealing to a new reading public sphere in Kerala, among whom an idea of a shared, uniquely Malayali past was gaining ground. As the language was being standardised in the 1890s and Malayalam publications began to be distributed across the territory of modern-day Kerala, the idea of ‘revival’ of a Malayalam cutting across regional and communal lines began to gain ground. An idea emerged of a distinct language spoken throughout ‘Malayāḷarājyaṃ’ (the Malayalam domain), cutting across regional and communal lines. To this end, authors and intellectuals strove to bring the language to an exalted status by removing archaic forms of grammar and vocabulary, and by developing diverse poetic and prose styles in Malayalam²⁶.

Significant among the authors of this era was Kottarathil Sankunni (1855-1937), a Malayalam teacher and munshi from Kottayam in Travancore who contributed to the building of a Kerala corpus of literature by writing down predominantly oral Malayalam folktales, thus codifying a genre of literature known as aitihyaṃ. The stories, which were written in a polished, Sanskritised register of Malayalam, dealt primarily with folk heroes, semi-historical anecdotes and stories behind some prominent temples of Kerala. They were published in the Malayalam monthly Bhashaposhini and the newspaper Malayala Manorama from 1898 onwards upon the insistence of Kandathil Varghese Mappila, who was the publisher of both periodicals and a friend of Sankunni who was impressed by the latter’s knowledge of folklore²⁷. The stories, over a hundred in number, were compiled in 1909 into the book Aitihyamāla (transl. The garland of folktales), which ran into several editions by prominent publishers in Kerala and enjoys wide popularity among Malayalam-speakers to this day.

While Sankunni claimed that he agreed to write the folktales for the reading pleasure of the literate classes²⁸, the publishing of Aitihyamāla served to canonise aitihyaṃ as a cornerstone of Kerala culture. The versions of the stories in the text are widely seen as authoritative among readers today. The formation of a canon through this text can be seen as part of a process of acculturation of stories from various backgrounds to a generally upper caste, upper class Malayali public sphere who were Sankunni’s audience²⁹. The narratives around Sabarimala and Ayyappan in the text clearly show the tendency toward such identity-building. To the author’s knowledge, they are also among the earliest published accounts of the story behind Sabarimala.

The two stories in the text that deal primarily with Sabarimala Ayyappan are ‘Śabarimalaśāstavuṃ Pantaḷattŭ Rājāvuṃ’ (transl. Sabarimala Shastha and the king of Pandalam, page 963, hereafter referred to as SPM) and the initial part of ‘Śāstānkōṭṭayuṃ Kuraṅṅanmāruṃ’ (transl. [The tale of] Sasthamcotta and the monkeys, page 519, hereafter referred to as SK). Sabarimala Ayyappan also appears briefly in a few other narratives. The characterisation of Ayyappan in this text draws upon existing oral narratives to build a canonised version of the deity’s lore.

The Malayali identity of Ayyappan is heavily emphasised in the work. For instance, in SPM, the king of the Pandyas was said to have come across a handsome youth in the woods while on a hunting expedition. When he asked the youth his name and about his origins, the latter replied that his name is Ayyappan, and that he had no home, although he considered himself a Malayali because his father was one³⁰. This is a recurring theme, as members of the Pandyan court later in the story continue to refer to him as ‘the Malayali’. In SK, Ayyappan disguises himself as a young man to attend a contest hosted by the king of Kayamkulam and introduces himself to the king as a Malayali who lives in the hills to the east³¹. Despite his divine origins as the son of Vishnu and Shiva, which is also an aspect of the story, he is still portrayed as belonging to Kerala first and foremost. This can be seen after he brings the tigers back to the Pandyan capital in SPM, after which he says that he will go to Malayāḷarājyaṃ to settle permanently. This causes the Pandyan king to move to Kerala, where he is said to have bought some land from a local lord named Kaippuḻatampān and established the Pandalam kingdom³².

While travelling in Malayāḷarājyaṃ, Ayyappan is said to have met Parashuraman. The 17th-century Keraḷolpati contains a myth of Parashuraman swinging an axe to pull Kerala out of the sea, following which he settled it with Brahmins. In the conversation between them, the latter laments that Ayyappan had come so late, after he had already established many shrines to Shastha to protect the land. He goes on to mention that the hill they were on was where Rama had met the ascetic woman Sabari, and was called Sabarimala. The temple he would establish at the spot for Ayyappan would be especially holy, and the entirety of Kerala would be under Ayyappan’s protection from there³³. Here, Sankunni seems to be accounting for the absence of Sabarimala from the major Sanskrit and Tamil canons by presenting it as having been established at a relatively later date, although still in mythical antiquity. He also ties the temple to the very soil of Kerala, having Ayyappan be the protector of the region with the approval of the mythical creator of the land. The fact that Ayyappan is given a place in a Brahmanical creation story- being the protector of a land assigned to Brahmins- draws him closer to the orthodox priesthood. The interchangeability of the terms ‘Malayāḷarājyaṃ’ and ‘Kerala’ throughout the text may also be an attempt at drawing a link between the historically loose conception of Malayalam-speaking territories and the budding political entity of Kerala.

The status of Sabarimala as a place of worship for Adivasi communities in these stories is only hinted at by Ayyappan’s dwelling in the hilly forest region and his affinity to animals, and is otherwise overlooked completely. The Mala Arayans, Ullatans and other communities who historically were tied to the shrine find no mention in the narratives of the Aithihyamala. It is possible that by this period these communities had been largely sidelined in temple affairs. As a result Ayyappan, while being strongly associated with the hills, is simultaneously dissociated from the natives of those very hills and attached instead to the Brahmins and their followers. As mentioned before, the Western Ghats have been seen as the frontiers of Kerala, and the narrative presented in the Aithihyamala confirms this view. The Adivasi residents of the land, however, seem to be no more than an accessory to the hills which belong to a Kerala dominated by a predominantly agrarian and mercantile Malayali people, who were supposed to have been led spiritually by the Brahmins.

By virtue of the stories being oral traditions, neither of them have a fixed time period associated with them. The timeless nature of these stories also imparts a timelessness to the events narrated therein; thus Ayyappan’s self-identification as a Malayali implies a Malayali identity stretching back into a mythical age. This re-constitution of Ayyappan as a divinely ordained protector of Kerala can be viewed in terms of Hobsawm’s conception of ‘invented tradition’ as a process of formalising and ritualising certain practices or stories to justify certain beliefs, and legitimising it by building continuity with the past³⁴. In that light, the Aithihyamala may be seen as inventing a tradition to both give legitimacy to both the deity Ayyappan as well as the Malayali identity by portraying them both as having originated in some ancient and sacred past. These stories, written as they were during a time of the construction of a Malayali identity, present Ayyappan as a deity characteristic to Kerala. We see the simultaneous construction of a shared past for a Malayalam-speaking Kerala and an assertion of religious identity; the appropriation of Ayyappan as a Hindu deity and as a Malayali deity go hand-in-hand, leaving no space for the non-Malayalam speaking, non-orthodox Hindu Adivasi traditions.

It is likely that the wide reach of these stories through Malayala Manorama and Bhashaposhini contributed to a burst in popularity for the shrine among the literate elites that made up their readership. As the Aitihyamāla was published, these stories would have enjoyed even larger audiences. Accounts of the pilgrimage from the 1920s onwards generally seem to accept the narrative of Sabarimala being chief among a series of Shastha shrines set up by Parashuraman to protect the hill frontier of Kerala.

As has been seen, late 19th and early 20th-century accounts spoke of increasing numbers of pilgrims visiting the shrine. This trend accelerated further, and the temple attracted greater footfall and patronage. By 1933 the shrine was notable enough to find a place in Emily Gilchrist Hatch’s guide book to Travancore, where it is mentioned as drawing crowds of thousands³⁵. In 1938, over two lakh pilgrims are reported to have attended the Makaravilakku festivities³⁶; at the time, Travancore’s population was about fifty lakhs. The rising popularity of the shrine was reflected in actions taken to improve amenities there; in 1938, temporary medical facilities began to be opened during Makaravilakku³⁷, and in the same year the urgent need for wells and other facilities was brought up in Travancore’s Sree Chitra State Council³⁸. In 1940, the royal family of Travancore and Dewan C.P Ramaswamy Iyer visited the shrine while on tour³⁹.

The increasing popularity of the shrine also spread among Tamil people from neighbouring Madras state, who began to undertake the pilgrimage in the 1940s. In 1942, a major Tamil playwright named T.S. Rajamanickam Pillai became a devotee of the deity upon a visit to Travancore and produced a play on the story of the temple, which premiered in Alappuzha in 1944 and subsequently ran for several years in the Tamil-speaking areas of Madras⁴⁰. Rajamanickam’s popular troupe of over 300 performers often performed religious plays with great pomp and splendour, even bringing chariots and elephants on stage for some acts⁴¹. It is likely that his play caused many Tamil people to become aware of Sabarimala and thereby undertake the pilgrimage. Lars Kjaerholm’s study of Ayyappan worship in the Madurai region revealed that the cult began to gain ground around 1945, which was when the first devotees from the region started visiting the temple. His study also emphasises the power of word-of-mouth dissemination, as testimonies by returned pilgrims who believed that they were blessed by their pilgrimage contributed to people in their social circles going there⁴².

On the 20th of May, 1950, the temple closed as per its regular schedule and was to be reopened on the 14th of June. When the head priest returned on that day, he found the temple structure thoroughly gutted and the idol broken into pieces⁴³. A police report was filed two days later, and a preliminary investigation considered the incident to be a deliberate act of destruction⁴⁴. The investigation was inconclusive, but the destruction was attributed to a radical streak in local Christians, either Nasrani landlords or Adivasis, both of whom dwelt in and around the forested region⁴⁵.

The incident was widely reported and led to great outrage. In Thiruvananthapuram, a general hartal was called by the Hindu Mahamandala on the 3rd of July to express ‘sorrow and resentment’ at the incident, and congregational prayers were held at the prominent Padmanabhaswamy temple⁴⁶. Two days prior, a ‘Sabarimalai Temple Day’ was held at Kochi where “all the Hindu shops and business houses’’ were closed in mourning⁴⁷. Malayali organisations in Bangalore also issued a statement to the government of Travancore-Cochin, in which appeals were made to the Travancore Devaswom Board and the Hindu Mahamandala to effect the temple’s speedy reconstruction⁴⁸. The prominent role of the Hindu Mahamandala and the mobilisation of Hindus on community lines points to the greater identification of the temple with mainstream Hinduism. The Christian identity of the alleged perpetrators may have further helped such organisations consolidate a hold among devotees.

However, the destruction of the temple led to a greater boost in its popularity. A few years prior to the incident, an advocate from Madurai named V. Nagappa Nair had been fascinated by the casteless nature of the pilgrimage. He was friends with PT Rajan, a prominent face of the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu, and convinced him to watch Rajamanickam’s play, following which they visited Sabarimala together in the late 1940s⁴⁹. As a result, besides raising funds for the temple’s reconstruction, Rajan also arranged for the ulsavavigrahaṃ (the festival idol of the temple, separate from the one in the sanctum) to be taken on a tour of the Tamil-speaking districts of Madras over the course of several months. The idol was transported by a lorry and accompanied by great fanfare wherever it was taken. It would generally be paraded with music and taken to prominent local temples in each new locality. For instance, an account of the idol’s arrival in Chennai mentions that “the streets of Vadapalani were festooned and hundreds of delegates from the city and suburbs had gathered to have ‘darshan’ …” following which it was taken around the famous temples in the city⁵⁰. Nair himself was said to have taken a replica idol of Ayyappan to Benares through prominent cities such as Bombay and pilgrimage centres such as Haridwar, although the details behind this venture are unclear and need to be looked into further⁵¹.

Despite the burst in popularity, at this stage Sabarimala did not seem to be widely known outside Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Gita Press Gorakhpur’s 1957 Hindi-language guide to important Hindu pilgrimage centres, Kalyan Tirthank, contains nearly 2,000 important places of worship around the nation, yet does not mention Sabarimala. This suggests that there was not yet much awareness of the temple among Hindi-speaking communities. Sabarimala was seemingly little-known in other South Indian states as well; a 1960 edition of the Kannada monthly Kasturi features a piece on Sabarimala which is clearly written for an audience unfamiliar with the temple and the deity⁵². The temple still had a huge draw among the Malayali and Tamil communities, with 6 lakh people visiting in 1965⁵³. It also seemed to have become the largest pilgrimage in Kerala by then; the public spectacle of the pilgrims travelling to the hill likely served to draw in new devotees with every passing year.

Throughout the 1960s, greater patronage began to come to the temple. An early impetus for this might have been the visit of V.V Giri in 1963, when he was the governor of Kerala. At that time, the walking path to Sabarimala from the Pampa river was widened, and a bridge constructed over the river⁵⁴. A golden flagpole was erected in 1967 by the erstwhile royal family of Travancore⁵⁵ at the cost of three lakh rupees⁵⁶. Malayali and Tamil communities outside their home states also began to set up Ayyappan temples. For instance, R.K Puram, a neighbourhood of Delhi with a significant South Indian population, saw an Ayyappan temple being set up in the mid-1970s, which is claimed to be the oldest Kerala-style temple built in North India. These temples largely continued to receive devotees from South Indian backgrounds and served as a centre for Malayali and Tamil community events⁵⁷.

In 1961, a movie about the deity, titled Sabarimala Sree Ayyappan and filmed in both Tamil and Malayalam, was produced by the director Sreeramulu Naidu and released just before the Makaravilakku season in November, enjoying massive success⁵⁸. Another movie on Sabarimala, titled Swami Ayyappan, was released in 1975 and also enjoyed massive popularity. A version of Harivarasanam, an early 20th century Sanskrit aṣṭakaṃ poem of uncertain authorship written in Ayyappan’s honour, was sung by the famous singer KJ Yesudas for this film and became one of the most popular devotional songs to the deity, with his version still being played during certain pujas at the temple⁵⁹.

On March 25th, 1983, some labourers discovered a stone cross while working in a field at Nilakkal, a town near Sabarimala which holds religious importance for the local Hindu and Christian communities. The cross was claimed to have been set up by Saint Thomas while he resided in India. On March 295h, it was reported that it was stolen, but that a new cross had been set up in a temporary bamboo shed. Christian believers from nearby districts began to flock there in thousands, to pay their respects to the new cross and call for the return of the ancient one. The popularity of the site grew to such an extent that a hectare of land was allotted by the Kerala government for the construction of a church. In response, the president of the Travancore Devaswom Board, Upendranatha Kurup, issued a statement that no church should be erected at Nilakkal and claimed that Christian groups had damaged Hindu temples and sculptures nearby. He sought the help of Hindu organisations, most significantly the Sangh Parivar, to prevent the construction of a church, claiming that the government left him with no other choice than to pursue such measures in the interest of the Hindu community⁶⁰.

Led by Kummanam Rajasekharan, the general secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in Kerala, massive protests were held outside the nearby Nilakkal Mahadeva temple and a march was taken out by the RSS in Thiruvananthapuram, leading to many arrests⁶¹. The protests were justified by claiming that the 18 hills around Sabarimala, where the land allotted to the church would fall, constituted the gardens (pūṅṅāvanaṃ) of Ayyappan, and that church authorities might eventually lay claim on Sabarimala itself. Kurup even alleged a failed attack on Sabarimala by Christian priests⁶². Given that Nilakkal lies about 23 kilometres away from Sabarimala, the involvement of the hill temple can be seen as a strategy of the Sangh Parivar to appeal to a pan-Kerala audience as they tried to expand their footprint in the state. A feared threat to Sabarimala would serve as an emotive issue to far more people than one to the local Nilakkal Mahadeva temple, as by this stage Sabarimala enjoyed great devotion from a large segment of the Malayali and Tamil Hindu populations. The legacy of Hindu-Christian communalism around the temple from the 1950 desecration incident may have also made the rhetoric stronger, stoking fears of another ‘Christian’ destruction of the shrine.

The protests quickly garnered huge attention and support throughout Kerala. On May 15th, K. Karunakaran, then chief minister, was booed and obstructed from entering the Guruvayur temple by a large crowd⁶³. On June 4th, a clash broke out between the police and Vishwa Hindu Parishad protestors as the latter threw stones at the former. Protesters, including several saffron-clad sannyasis, were taken into custody. On July 17th, temples across Kerala flew black banners and marches were taken out with people wearing black clothes and holding black flags to protest the church construction and the arrests. During the course of these marches, two Catholic churches were attacked and several state buses vandalised, and physical violence broke out between Hindu and Christian protestors⁶⁴. A compromise was ultimately reached by dialogue between the Hindu and Christian stakeholders, and an ecumenical church was established four kilometres away at Angamoozhy⁶⁵.

Despite the ultimately peaceful resolution, the Nilakkal agitations had a lasting impact on both the politics of Kerala and the Sabarimala temple. Besides the RSS mouthpiece Organiser, other Hindu nationalist publications such the US-based Hinduism Today ran articles presenting the incident as the protection of a Hindu place of worship against a global anti-Hindu conspiracy supported by the state government⁶⁶. The mobilisation of religious sentiments, with highly visible involvement from Hindu religious and political leaders, the rhetorical appeals to a Hindu identity as a part of mass mobilisation, and the national coverage surrounding the issue meant that Sabarimala became entrenched as a part of Hindu identity both within and beyond Kerala.

Following this incident, Sabarimala became far more widely known throughout India. A combination of an emerging religious middle class with enough time and money to go on pilgrimages over long distances, the wide coverage of Sabarimala following the Nilakkal agitation and improved transportation infrastructure meant that the temple began to see a greater footfall, now including people from other South Indian states and Mumbai⁶⁷. By 1987, 15 million people attended the Makaravilakku festival, including several groups from Andhra Pradesh (then including Telangana) and Maharashtra⁶⁸, and this number had doubled by 2003⁶⁹.

The entry of women of menstruating age into the temple was formally banned by the Kerala High Court only in 1991, in response to appeals from the priestly Thazhamon family, the Hindu Munnani and the Travancore Devaswom Board⁷⁰. The judgement was based on the interpretation of Hindu customs and Hindu law, without any reference to Adivasi practices- a clear sign of the complete sidelining of those communities. In 2018, this judgement was overturned by the Supreme Court under CJI Deepak Misra with a 4-1 vote (ironically, the vote against came from Indu Malhotra, the only female judge on the bench), sparking a massive controversy⁷¹. Despite the granting of legal permission, it was still impossible for menstruating-age women to enter the temple as protestors, including local women, blocked the path of such groups and heckled them till they turned back⁷² It took 96 days after the judgement for two women to be able to enter the shrine, as many of those who attempted to were turned back amid verbal and occasionally physical harassment at different points; some had managed to get as far as the eighteen holy steps in disguise, while others were not even able to reach as far as Erumeli⁷³.

The protests against women’s entry were spearheaded by the Sangh Parivar and allied organisations from October 2018 onwards. While some protests were peaceful, many saw destruction of property and physical violence between protestors and counter-protesters, leading to arrests across Kerala⁷⁴⁷⁵⁷⁶. Normal life was interrupted in most parts of the state owing to the tensions across major population centres, with cadres of political parties using the unrest to settle scores with each other, leading to stabbings and the hurling of country bombs⁷⁷. Men who had spoken out about supporting women’s entry into the temple were physically attacked, and many women were threatened⁷⁸. In response to these protests, the state government, in association with women’s organisations and pro-entry Hindu groups, declared a massive human chain called ‘Vanitha Mathil’ (transl. Wall of women) to be formed across Kerala on New Year’s Day of 2019. The response was overwhelming, with about 50 lakh women holding hands and forming a chain along the national highway for the nearly 620 kilometre long distance from the northernmost Kasaragod district to the southernmost Thiruvananthapuram district and taking a pledge regarding gender equality⁷⁹. Ultimately , the state government seems to have quietly reversed its pro-entry position during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020⁸⁰.

The ferocity of both the protests and counter-protests show the importance of Sabarimala as a symbol of Kerala itself in the minds of many of the state’s residents. The temple has become part of the sacred geography of Kerala, with any discussion on religion in the state incomplete without reference to Sabarimala. The openness of the Ayyappan cult, transcending religious and caste lines, and simultaneously its strong affiliation with militant Hindu groups, means that social organisations across ideological lines champion the temple for a multitude of reasons; while a BJP cadre may revere Sabarimala Ayyappan as an upholder of ‘Sanatana Dharma’, a rationalist may view him as a vestige of a pre-Hindu tradition that demonstrates the fundamentally tolerant nature of Kerala. Either way, they would revere and respect what they believe the deity stands for; Sabarimala Ayyappan cannot be boiled down to one single identity, no matter how far his worship and tales may be standardised.

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