The 10-day annual Koda festival of the Bhagavathy temple in this coastal town began on Sunday morning with the traditional flag-hoisting ( kodiyettu) ceremony in the presence of devotees from Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Temple tantri Edakkode Sankaranarayanan and melshanthi Vignesh Kurukkal began the rituals in the presence of Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and Tami Nadu Information Technology Minister Mano Thankaraj, as devotees chanted ‘Saranam tha devi, saranam tha’.
Mr. Soundararajan also inaugurated the 85th annual Hindu Maha Sammelanam organised by the Haindava Seva Sangham after the kodiyettu ceremony.
Those present at the kodiyettu ceremony included A. Vijayakumar, MP; District Collector M. Aravind; District Police Chief V. Badri Narayanan; and Devaswom Joint Commissioner Gnanasekhar.
The legendary Koda ritual will be performed on March 8 midnight. It will be attended by hundreds of devotees from various parts of Tamil Nadu and south Kerala.
Valiyapadukka, one of the major rituals of the festival, will be held on March 4 and the procession of Valiya Theevatti on March 7.
The festival will conclude on March 8 with the Odukku Puja at midnight. Cooked rice and various other foods will be brought in huge mud pots by priests in a procession from a specially erected kitchen outside the temple and offered to the deity during the puja. Devotees also offer pongala at the temple on the festival days.
The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation and the Tamil Nadu Road Transport Corporation are operating special bus services to and from Thiruvananthapuram during the festival days.
The Tamil Nadu police have deployed a huge contingent of special police and marine police for security and crowd management. Half-a-dozen watchtowers have been set up around the temple town, including in the coastal areas.
The Mandaikadu Devi temple is situated three kms off the port town of Colachel, which was a prominent trade centre under the princely state of erstwhile Travancore. Though located in Tamil Nadu, the temple and its festivals are run as per the rites and traditions followed in Kerala. It was in 1803 that the former ruler of erstwhile Travancore took over the administration of the temple. The temple is now administered by Kanyakumari Devaswom Board.
