Vettakkorumakan: The Son Born to the Hunter, and Kerala's Kalamezhuthu Rituals

The Kirata episode is one of the best known passages in the Mahabharata, and it has produced shrines at opposite ends of India.

In the epic, Arjuna performs severe tapas for the Pashupatastra. Shiva comes to test him disguised as a Kirata, a forest hunter, with Parvati beside him as a hunter woman. A boar appears, both loose arrows at it, and a dispute follows over whose arrow struck first. Arjuna fights the hunter, cannot defeat him, and eventually recognises him. Shiva reveals himself and grants the weapon.

The episode has left deities across the country:

• At Kadampuzha in Kerala, Parvati in her hunter form is worshipped, at a shrine with no image, where offerings are made into a pit
• At Kirateshwar Mahadev in Sikkim, Shiva in the Kirata form is worshipped on the bank of the Rangeet
• At Vettakkorumakan shrines in Kerala, the son born to that couple in that form is worshipped

The Kerala extension is theologically interesting. Most traditions treat the Kirata form as a temporary disguise. Kerala treats it as a real form with real consequences, one of which is a son who continues to be worshipped in his own right, with his own festivals and his own ritual repertoire.

That willingness to build worship around the details of an episode, rather than only around its main figures, is characteristic of Kerala's devotional culture.

The ritual most closely associated with Vettakkorumakan is kalamezhuthu pattu, one of the most striking devotional art forms of Kerala.

How it works:

• The deity's figure is drawn on the floor of the temple or ritual space, at large scale, using coloured powders
• The powders are natural: rice flour for white, turmeric for yellow, charred husk for black, and leaf and mineral preparations for green and red
• The drawing is done freehand, without stencils, by ritual specialists trained in the form, and takes hours
• Once complete, the pattu, the ritual singing, is performed before the kalam, accompanied by traditional instruments
• At the conclusion, the kalam is ritually erased, and the powder is distributed as prasad

That last step is the point of it. An image is made with great skill and care, worshipped, and then deliberately wiped away. Nothing is kept.

Kalamezhuthu is performed for several deities in Kerala, including Bhagavathy, Ayyappan and the nagas, but Vettakkorumakan kalams are among the most elaborate. The figure is drawn with bow and arrow, in the hunter's form, and the size can fill a hall.

For a visitor, watching a kalam being made and then erased in the same night is one of the clearest expressions in India of the idea that form is temporary and the presence invoked in it is not.

Vettakkorumakan's shrines are concentrated in central and northern Kerala, and several are attached to old family and royal traditions.

• Nilambur Vettakkorumakan Kavu, in Malappuram district, is the best known, and its annual festival, the Nilambur Pattu, is a major regional occasion
• Shrines in Kozhikode, Palakkad, Thrissur and Kannur districts, many within larger temple complexes as a parivar deity
• Family shrines maintained by households who keep him as their deity, particularly in the northern districts
• Theyyam performance in north Kerala, where Vettakkorumakan appears as a theyyam form, with the performer becoming the deity for the duration of the ritual

The theyyam connection places him in the same world as the fierce deities of Kannur and Kasaragod, where the deity is understood to speak and act through the performer, and devotees address their questions to him directly during the performance.

Offerings vary by shrine, and older customs at some fierce deity sites in Kerala included offerings not made at satvik temples. Practice differs considerably from place to place and has changed over time. Ordinary visiting devotees today generally offer flowers, coconut, lamps and the sponsoring of a kalamezhuthu pattu or a vilakku, and the temple will say plainly what is offered where.

Kerala's devotional landscape has an unusually crowded field of Shiva's sons and fierce guardians, and it helps to see how they relate.

• Ayyappan, at Sabarimala, born of Hari and Hara, with the largest pilgrimage in the state
• Subrahmanya, worshipped across the south, with major temples in Kerala and neighbouring Tamil country
• Vettakkorumakan, born to Shiva and Parvati in the hunter form, worshipped with kalamezhuthu and theyyam
• Bhagavathy in her many forms, at Kodungallur, Chottanikkara, Attukal and thousands of village kavus
• The nagas, in sarpa kavus and at temples such as Mannarasala and Nagaraja temple
• Muthappan, at Parassinikadavu, worshipped through a continuous theyyam tradition

What these share is that Kerala tends to keep its deities close to the forest and the household rather than in monumental temple towns. Even the largest of them are approached through groves, family shrines and performance traditions.

Vettakkorumakan is a good example of that pattern. He has no single great temple city, no state wide festival calendar and no pan Indian following. What he has is a network of kavus, a distinctive ritual art form, a theyyam tradition and families who have kept him for generations, which in Kerala is a more typical shape for devotion than a famous temple would be.

For a visitor, the way to encounter this deity is through the ritual rather than through a monument.

• Ask about kalamezhuthu pattu schedules at temples in Malappuram, Palakkad, Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kannur. These are usually announced locally and are held in festival seasons and on family occasions.
• Nilambur Pattu, the annual festival at the Nilambur kavu, is the largest occasion associated with him
• Theyyam season in north Kerala runs roughly from the Malayalam month of Thulam through to Edavam, broadly October to May, and Vettakkorumakan theyyam is performed in that period at shrines that keep it
• Temple dress code applies. Men are generally expected to remove upper garments and wear a mundu, and women wear saree, set mundu or salwar. Check the specific temple's current rules.
• Photography of kalams and theyyam is often restricted, and permission should be sought rather than assumed

A point of respect worth making. Kalamezhuthu and theyyam are not folk performances staged for audiences, whatever the setting they are sometimes presented in. They are rituals in which the deity is understood to be present, and the performers hold hereditary ritual roles.

If you attend one, sit where devotees sit, follow the temple's instructions, do not walk across or near the kalam, and stay to the end if you can. The erasure of the kalam is not the clean up after the ritual. It is the last act of it.