A number of people would read the \u2018Thula Cauvery Mahatmeeyam\u2019 and have a bath in the River Noyyal or visit Srirangam during the Tamil month of Aippasi. Its a time when the waters of all the rivers are brought to River Cauvery by the North East Monsoons. Bathing in the waters of this sacred Cauvery is supposed to remove all our sins. Its a time when we are made to be aware of all our flaws and a correction process is put in place. Some people do not eat onions during this month. \u2018Diwali\u2019 is the time when the victory of good over evil is celebrated with sweets, special oil bath and new clothes. People do \u2018Lakshmi Pooja\u2019 and visit the temples. The Tamil month of \u2018Karthikai\u2019 is celebrated by lighting lamps on three days particularly. The lamps are prepared and placed on tiny wet cow dung patties and lit in large numbers. Clay lamps are used but the wealthier use silver lamps.
\nThe month of \u2018Marghazi\u2019 follows all this and the Telugu speaking people read \u2018Thiruppavai\u2019 in Tamil and offer flavoured rice to Goddess Andal everyday. Pongal follows and \u2018Sankranthi Pongal\u2019, \u2018Maattu Pongal\u2019 are celebrated well. The \u2018Vaikunta Ekadasi\u2019 comes before all this and people used to stay up all night for the same by reading the stories connected to Lord Vishnu. \u2018Adi Sukravaram\u2019 and \u2018Thai Sukravaram\u2019 are important for married women. They visit temples and give manjal and kumkumam (turmeric and vermillion) to friends and relatives. The daughters of the house are given a \u2018Peddha Odivala\u2019 once in five years. Its a time when clothes, fruits, betel leaves and maybe ornaments or money is given to the daughters of the family. This is kind of ensuring that the daughters are taken good care of. Some people give a share of the family property as \u2018Peddha Odivala\u2019 to the daughter.
\nGoddess Koniamman is the tutelary deity of Coimbatore and the women of the mercantile community would visit her temple and offer prayers. The household would make a dough and make a lamp with it. Onions would be placed along and this dough known as \u2018Jothi\u2019 is placed on the heads of the unmarried kids and they are made to turn around thrice. Later this is taken to the temple. Everyone would offer water and buttermilk during the Goddess Koniamman car festival. \u2018Ratha Sapthami\u2019 is another occasion which announces the arrival of summer for the sun would get closer. A picture of a chariot with the sun would be drawn and Pongal will be offered to Lord Surya. He is the really visible God like Mother Earth who is known as \u2018Bhumatha\u2019. People celebrate \u2018Mahashivarathri\u2019 by visiting temples all through the night. The visits are to the Kottai Sangameswarar Temple or the Pettai Visweswarar Temple (this temple has the sacred banalingam which was brought from the River Narmada long ago). \u2018Sri Rama Navami\u2019 is celebrated with neer majjiga (butter milk) and panagam (sweetened water). Everyone talk about the virtues of the decent Lord Rama who is dear to not only his family and Lord Hanuman but to the entire humanity. People try to visit all the three temples – Mathura (Lord Krishna\u2019s birth place), Varanasi (Lord Kasi Viswanath), Ayodhya (Ramjanmabhoomi) at least once in their life time. A visit to Gaya for doing \u2018Pitru Tharpanam\u2019 is also important.
\nEvery month \u2018Kruthika\u2019 is celebrated with fasting and a visit to the Lord Karthikeya Temple. \u2018Panguni Uthiram\u2019 and \u2018Thai Poosam\u2019 are special occasions. The \u2018Govardhanagiridhari\u2019 utasavam is also celebrated by them.
\n\u2018Chithra Pornami\u2019 with flavoured rice is much loved. \u2018Chithra Gupta Nomu\u2019 is also another sacred occasion. Chithra Gupta writes the account of all our deeds and it is considered by Lord Yama for punishments or rewards.
\nUsually people celebrate this for they wish to placate the chronicler Chithra Gupta while also keeping track of their dos and donts.
\nPeople try to get better by celebrating these occasions.
\nThe festivals are followed by \u2018Akshaya Thritheeya\u2019 the sacred day which celebrates the story of the \u2018Akshaya Patra\u2019 which was given by Lord Krishna to the Pandavas during their exile.
\nThe festivals and rituals of the mercantile community are fully non violent, vegetarian while celebrating the oneness of India.
\n—Rajesh Govindarajulu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A number of people would read the \u2018Thula Cauvery Mahatmeeyam\u2019 and have a bath in the River Noyyal or visit Srirangam during the Tamil month of Aippasi. Its a time when the waters of all the rivers are brought to River Cauvery by the North East Monsoons. Bathing in the waters of this sacred Cauvery is supposed to remove all our sins. Its a time when we are made to be aware of all our flaws and a correction process is put in place. Some people do not eat onions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classic-kovai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kovaimetro.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kovaimetro.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kovaimetro.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kovaimetro.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kovaimetro.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kovaimetro.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1591,"href":"https:\/\/www.kovaimetro.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions\/1591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kovaimetro.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kovaimetro.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kovaimetro.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kovaimetro.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}