Heavenly figure: Arasu (front) making final preparations with the help of a volunteer at the Arulmigu Sri Mahamariamman Temple on Queen Street in George Town, Penang. — KT GOH/ The Star
GEORGE TOWN: The Navarathiri festival – a nine-day prayer for Hindus when they venerate god as a mother – will get a modern touch this year in Penang.
An event management company has been hired to decorate the Arulmigu Sri Mahamariamman Temple on Queen Street, the oldest Hindu temple in the state.
The temple, which started celebrating the festival in 1883 when it was first built, will be spending more than RM20,000 on the festival which starts on Thursday and ends on Oct 12, said its chairman R. Arasu.
“Each year we change and put up new decorations for the festival, but this is the first time we have engaged the services of an event management company. We wanted to make it a very grand affair,” he said.
Arasu said preparations were already underway with volunteers washing the temple floor, polishing brass items, hanging decorations, cleaning the dining area and preparing the chariot for the final day of the festival.
He explained that on the nine days of the festival, the Goddess Mahamariamman would be decorated and dressed in nine different forms – with different jewellery, sarees and looks.
In the Hindu pantheon, there was a great battle between Goddess Durga and the powerful demon Mahishasura that lasted nine days. On each day, an incarnation of the Goddess is worshipped to celebrate the victory over Mahishasura, or the victory of good over evil.
On Oct 12, there will be a chariot procession bearing the idol of the Goddess to mark the end of the festival, followed by a “poochudi vila” (flower blessing).
“We will also have the special unjal (swing) event on Oct 14,” he said. “These are done to ‘calm’ the Goddess after the battle and make her ‘happy’ again.”
Arasu also said a seven-tier kollu platform would also be set up at the temple for devotees to place a variety of little figurines of people and deities. Kollu is a platform featuring several tiers or steps where figurines are displayed and decorated, to be blessed by the Goddess.
This year, the Navarathiri festival falls on the same day as the Nine Emperor Gods Festival – held on the first day of the ninth lunar month – observed by the Taoist community.
The Nine Emperor Gods Festival pays homage to the Goddess of the North Star, believed to control the Books of Life and Death.
Devotees believe the gods came through the waterways and processions are usually held from temples to a river or seashore as a symbolic gesture.
