Tamil New Year is one of the biggest events in the Tamil community calendar and the diaspora across the globe celebrate the day by hosting family events and pujas at the temple.
The Thiru Subramaniyar Aalayam Temple in Mangere hosted a comprehensive Puja session twice celebrating the occasion on Saturday, April 14 at the temple. The event witnessed more than 200 devotees during the prayer service in the evening and a small number in the morning puja service.
Volunteers from the community on such occasions come to the temple to help organise the Puja, bathe and decorate the idols with fruits and vegetables.
The priests conduct a special session of puja, havan (consecrated fire) and abhishekam (bathing deities) at the temple and the devotees keep coming and participating at the puja through the day.
The Indian Weekender in conversation with a community leader, devotees and priest of the temple, learned more about the special puja conducted on the occasion of the New Year.
The priests bathe the idols of the deities every morning and on this occasion is done several times during the puja. After the abhishekam or bathing the sacred idols, the priest conducted havan with community members joining the havan circle. In this ritual of burning wood in a confined container or box, the priest chants and offers grains, ghee into the consecrated fire followed by Aarti.
The Tamil community starts the celebration of the new year by waking up early in the morning and visiting the Puja room in the house. This ritual is followed by every household as an essential part of the celebration and starting the day with the blessings of the deities.
The parents also offer gifts to the children and the whole family dawns new festival clothing on the occasion of the New Year.
“Our Tamil calendar has been in existence for more than 5000 years, and this is our New Year and our way of celebrating this occasion for centuries,” Priest Karthik told The Indian Weekender.
The puja at the temple starts with the idol of Meenakshi Arambula, then the Shivlingam and Nandi facing the Shivalingam, followed by the idol of Thiru Subramaniyar, Maha Ganapathy, Hanuman, Maturi, Garuda and Saraswati.
The volunteers at the temple dedicated most hours of their morning on Saturday in preparing the decorations for the evening Puja. They made garlands and other ornamental decorations with the vegetables and fruits donated by the community members which were late placed on Maha Ganapathy idol before the evening Puja.
The evening Puja witnessed devotees clad in traditional clothing participate in the Puja. The Ganesha idol was decorated with vegetable garlands and floral ornaments which were later distributed amongst the devotees at the end of the Puja.
“Back in Fiji, we used to visit the Thiru Subramaniyar temple, and if anyone were unable to go to the temple, they would conduct the puja in the house, invite friends and relatives and celebrate the New Year at home. This has been our way of celebrating Tamil New Year for decades,” Mani, a devotee at the Tamil New Year puja at Thiru Subramaniyar told The Indian Weekender.
Temple’s daily activities:
The temple is open every day from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the morning and from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. where two priests conduct different pujas for the devotees. The Abhishekam and alangaram (decorating of idols) are done every day, and at least 15 havans are performed every month. On Saturdays, the temple conducts Navagraha Havan, and Abhishekam and devotees make special donations towards the temple.
ISSUE
Leave a Comment