SABARIMALAI

Despite dinning into the ears over yugas that perfect equality and unhindered freedom in matters of worship alone ensures harmony in society, it is neither practiced nor encouraged. Hence decadence. Out right. But this all-adorable Ayyappa cult, built upon the very ruins of that sadly neglected factor has become instrumental in such phenomenal growth that none but itself can lay claim for equality. Hats off to the reformer.

The strength and secret of its unprecedented popularity lie in the core of ritual code it prescribed and injunctions it set for the prospective Ayyappa. They are, in fact, simple and sublime, pressing neither self-mortification, like fasting or doing penance for years, nor depletion of the hoarded money on yagnas or abhishekas etc. 

This is another principal factor for its rapid dissemination and ever swelling dimensions. Astounding it sounds that the number of Ayyappas visiting the sacred Hills has crossed millions in a very short period of, say three or four decades.  "How" and "Why" takes us to the origin of this cult, and its method of, initiation for constant propitiation of that Dharma Sastha, revealing himself in meditation posture in his august abode, atop the Sabarimalai.

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