सनातन पुस्तकालय Sanatan Cultural Library

The Nellaiappar temple is one of Tamil Nadu's great Shiva complexes, its paired shrines of Nellaiappar and Kanthimathi Amman linked by a chain mandapam, its musical stone pillars famous among connoisseurs of temple architecture. The sthala purana tells how Shiva sheltered a devotee's rice crop from a storm by becoming a fence — vel — around the paddy — nel — earning the name Nellaiappar and giving Tirunelveli itself its name; the shrine is honoured in the hymns of the Tevaram saints, placing it among the venerable padal petra sthalams. The therottam expresses an old conviction of Tamil temple religion: that once a year the deity leaves the sanctum to travel the streets, so that darshan comes to every home — the elderly, the ill, and those who may never enter the temple. The Nellaiappar cars are counted among the largest temple chariots in Tamil Nadu, towering structures of carved wood built up each year with tiers of decorated superstructure.

The Aani festival runs for days of processions and rituals before the car day. On the therottam morning, after early abhishekams, the festival images of Nellaiappar and Kanthimathi Amman are carried out in ceremony and installed in their chariots, with Vinayagar and Murugan riding ahead in their own cars. Huge ropes run out before each ther, and at the auspicious moment thousands of devotees — men and women together, many having vowed the pull — take up the ropes to cries of praise, and the great cars begin to move around the four car streets that frame the temple. Nadaswaram and tavil play, camphor and coconuts are offered along the route, and households on the car streets set out water and offerings. Moving the enormous chariots is slow, skilled work, steered with wooden brakes and levers by hereditary teams; the circuit takes much of the day. Pulling the ther, or even touching the rope, is held to confer great merit, and the crowds that come for it fill the city.

A temple car needs its temple, its car streets and its thousands of hands, so the Aani Therottam belongs to Tirunelveli — but the ther tradition is one diaspora Hindus increasingly recognise, since several Canadian temples now hold modest chariot processions of their own in summer. Families from the Tirunelveli region follow the Aani festival by live stream and news coverage each June–July, and a visit home timed to the therottam is a memorable way to show Canadian-born children the scale of Tamil temple festival culture at its source. At home, the day can be kept simply with a lamp and Shiva worship — the Lingashtakam or Tevaram verses suit the occasion — remembering Nellaiappar and Kanthimathi as the family's link to the ancestral district. Check your local temple for any summer chariot or Shiva festival programmes in the same season.