You must have seen many forms of faith, people doing different kinds of tactics to appease their deity.
While people are seen crawling in temple steps, we are going to tell you a practice that will raise your eyebrows. There is a temple of goddess Mahalakshmi in Mahadanapuram of Tamilnadu, where devotees break coconuts on their heads, not on stones.
This view is common in the Mahalakshmi temple of Krishnaripurapura of Karur district.
A sight to behold! Here priests break the coconut on the heads of the devotees irrespective of gender. It is believed that by doing this will lead them good health, and God’s grace remains unchanged. For centuries, this tradition continues to remain the same.
During the British era, the colonisers wanted to construct a railway track through the temple which would result in the demolition of the temple and the villagers were against it.
There is an interesting history behind the ritual.
During the construction of the temple, 187 coconut-shaped stones had been retrieved from the river near the temple. The Britishers, challenge the locals and asked them to break all the stones over their head then only the railway-line would not be built. Surprisingly villagers succeeded. Since that day, during the Aadi festival, hundreds of people line up outside the temple where the priests break the coconuts over their heads.
PNN/Agencies