Chithirai Thiruvizha

The tradition & historical record

The Meenakshi Tirukalyanam festival, also known as Chithirai Tiruviḻa or Meenakshi Kalyanam, is an annual Tamil Hindu celebration in the city of Madurai during the month of April. The festival, celebrated during the Tamil month of Chithirai, is associated with the Meenakshi Temple, dedicated to the goddess Meenakshi, a form of Parvati and her consort Sundareshvara, a form of Shiva. The festival lasts for one month. The first 15 days mark the celebrations of the coronation of Meenakshi as the divine ruler of Madurai and her marriage to Sundareshvara. The next 15 days mark the celebrations of the journey of Kallaḻagar or Aḻagar (a form of the god Vishnu) from his temple to Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai. ¹

As per the legend, Meenakshi was the daughter of the Pandya king Malayadhvaja Pandyan and queen Kanchana Malai. The royal couple did not have a child for a long time, so Malayadhvaja Pandyan performed special pujas and offered his prayers seek a son. During the puja, a 3-year-old girl emerged from the fire and sat on the lap of the king, bearing three breasts. At that time, a divine voice from the sky told them that this child was an incarnation of Parvati (the wife of Shiva), and Shiva himself would come to marry her at the right age. Meenakshi was trained in warfare, and she was crowned as the queen of the Pandya kingdom after her father died. She conquered the whole world with her extraordinary war skills, and at last she went to Kailasha (the abode of Shiva) to conquer it. When Meenakshi confronted Shiva in the battlefield, she fell in love with him and realized that she was a form of Parvati. Her third breast fell upon meeting him. Shiva assured Meenakshi that he would come to Madurai to marry her. As promised, Shiva, along with all the gods and the sages, came to Madurai. Shiva as Sundareshvara married Meenakshi and ruled the Pandya kingdom under the name Sundara Pandyan. Their temple stands at the centre of Madurai. The Aḻagar festival is associated with the Vaishnava Kallaḻagar temple. Once, the sage Manduka was taking a bath in the holy waters of the Agaya Gangai in Aḻagar hills. At that time, the short tempered sage, Durvasa, came by that way. Manduka missed his arrival, which Durvasa took as an insult and cursed Manduka to become a frog and live in the river Vaigai. On Manduka's beeseaching, Durvasa told him to go to Vaigai and pray to the Aḻagar form of Vishnu to be released from the curse. ¹

Historically, the Meenakshi festival related to Shaiva sect was celebrated separately in the Masi month and the Aḻagar festival of the Vaishnava sect in the Chithirai month of the Tamil Calendar. Both festivals were merged into a single event to unite the people of the two Hindu sects (Shaiva and Vaishnava) as well as to boost Madurai's economy, under the rule of Tirumala Nayaka. The location of culminating event of Aḻagar festival - the entering of the river by Aḻagar - was also moved from Thenur village to Madurai. ¹

The following are the list of events in the Tirukalyanam festival. ¹

"Kodi yetram" literally means "raising the flag". During this event, the chief priest of the Meenakshi temple hoists the holy flag (kodi) on the dhvaja stambham (flag pole) of the temple. This marks the beginning of the festival. The flag stays on the flag pole until the end of the festival. ¹

"Pattabhishekam" means "coronation". Meenakshi is crowned as the queen of Madurai on this day, and she is regarded to rule the Pandya Kingdom for the next four months. After this ceremony, her husband Sundareshvara is crowned as the king of Madurai for the next eight months. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Meenakshi Tirukalyanam”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Chithirai Thiruvizha is annual Tamil Hindu festival in Madurai, India, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 2 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²