Thousands of people witnessed the movements of the chariots of six deities and their congregation at Kalpathy on Wednesday evening, marking the finale of the three-day car festival. The Kalpathy Ratholsavam, organised by four major temples of Kalpathy after a gap of two years, had a renewed verve and zest as people devoted themselves to serving the deities by pulling their chariots along the village roads.
Thousands of people, including women and children, pulled the ropes to drag the giant wooden chariots. All the six chariots of Kalpathy belonging to the four temples rolled along the villages with their respective deities mounted on them.
When Visalakshi Sametha Viswanatha Swamy Temple, popularly called Kundambalam, had three chariots (one each for Siva, Ganapathy, and Murugan), Manthakkara Mahaganapathy Temple, Chathapuram Prasanna Mahaganapathy Temple and Old Kalpathy Lakshminarayana Swamy Temple had one chariot each for their respective deities.
All of them moved along the roads of Kalpathy on Wednesday in a festive ambience. When they converged at a meeting point near Kundambalam in the evening, thousands of Kalpathy residents stood witness to what they call the Rathasangamam, the culmination of the festival, where religious frenzy overflowed, providing one of the iconic spectacles of the car festival.
Although the Rathasangamam did not have so much religious or spiritual significance as the movement of individual deities had, it achieved utmost social significance over the years because of the spectacle it provided for the people.
“The secular aspect of this festival is visible from the fact that thousands of people of different faiths are seen drawing the chariots around the agraharams,” said K.N. Lakshminarayanan, one of the patrons of Viswanatha Swamy Temple, the centre point of the festival.
Each agraharam or household in Kalpathy offered nivedyam and arathi to the deities as the chariots moved along the village roads. “It is the biggest moment for us all when Bhagvan comes to us offering blessings,” said Karimpuzha Raman, president of the Kerala Brahmana Sabha.
After meeting and greeting each other in front of Kundambalam, the chariots were taken back to the respective temples, where the deities were dismounted. “When Brahmin priests do the mounting of deities, the dismounting is done by non-Brahmins. The Rajaswaroopam had given them this right so as to include all communities in the festival,” pointed out Mr. Lakshminarayanan.
