Mayana Kollai

Travel / Portrait

Mayana Kollai

Mayana Kollai is a celebration associated with Godess Angallaman

Maha Shivaratri is an annual festival dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva, and is particularly important in the Shaivism tradition of Hinduism. Unlike most Hindu festivals, which are celebrated during the day, the Maha Shivaratri is celebrated at night. Maha Shivaratri is a solemn event notable for its introspective focus, fasting, meditation on Shiva, self study, social harmony and an all night vigil at Shiva temples.

The celebration includes maintaining an all-night vigil and prayers, because Hindus mark this night as “overcoming darkness and ignorance” in one’s life and the world through Shiva.

While Shivaratri is widely celebrated and know to many, the ‘Mayana Kollai’ or ‘looting of the graveyard’ celebration in Tamil Nadu which takes place the day after Maha Shivaratri is not known by many.

The temples for Deity Angallaman are usually located close to burial grounds and Chennai too has few temples where the Mayana Kollai is celebrated; but to witness the celebrations in full glory one has to travel to KaveriPattinam in South Tamil Nadu.

Devotees, numbering in tens of thousands, converge in this town the day after Maha Shivratri to worship the deity Angalamman, meaning ‘The Protector God’.

Kids, Women, Men transform themselves by painting their faces and decorating themselves like Goddess kali and come in a procession around the temple premises and streets in town. The celebration culminates in graveyard where devotees offer prayer and conclude their vows to deity.

Some people offer Chicken & Lamb to the fiercest form of kali to be sacrificed with their bite. Others perform Pooja to the dead.

The devotees engage in various forms of piercings to express their devotion. Thousands of devotees have themselves pierced in the mouth, tongue, back by metal spear some small, and many which are over 5 feet long, other forms commonly seen are piercing hooks on the back and dragging metal chains, solid rocks, cars and trucks!