| Temples & Legends Of Kerala |
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| Temples & Legends Of
India |
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THE TEMPLES OF PADMANABHA |
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Thus the famous
arattu procession takes place on the 10th day of the Utsavam in the late afternoon. The
images of Sri Padmanabha, Krishna and Narasimha are carried out from the temple along the
three-mile road to the edge of the vast Arabian sea, at Sankhumukham, escorted by members
of the princely family and armed Police contingents, with temple accessories. At sunset,
as per custom and tradition handed down through centuries, the deities are ritually bathed
in the sea after appropriate pujas. An illuminated procession escorts the purified' images
back to the temple.
The two processions are perhaps the most exoteric in symbolizing spectacularly the triumph
of good over evil, the extirpation of that which obstructs the spiritual life and the
attainment of purification and peace through the destruction of the passions. And if the
temple is a rePresentation of the cosmos, such ceremonials, carried out through the art of
symbolical presentation, anticipate the final withdrawal of the external universe into the
being of Brahma. Indeed, as Cousins concludes, "Assuredly art has no profounder
impulse or vision." |
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