Kulatheivam's - Family Guardian Deities

First thanks to @varunshridhar for rekindling my blogging self...

In this post I'm trying to narrate the story of our kulatheivam Lord Pattani, Lord Thaanthodri Perumal, Kathireswari Amman & Paapathi Amman.

Lord Pattani:

He is our Kaaval Theivam (Saviour God). And he gets the first priority. Before beginning any functions or prayers we will first pray them then only we will go ahead with other prayers.



Let me try to narrate the story of Pattani here. The real name of Lord Pattani is "Malukar Sayibu" (Sayibu is colloquial word for calling people following Muslim religion). And Pattani is one of a community name in Muslims, since our lord belongs to that particular community our great grand parents used to call so & that itself become the name of the Lord.

Here comes the story. Few hundred years back Malukar Sayibu was going through this village named Paadiyur, it was full of dense trees those days. He was a very masculine in nature, he usually carries a gun & whip with him always. On the way he saw the village people offering prayers to Aiyanar (he is another savior God in villages), Aiyanar statues will be usually be like he sits on a horse. Seeing this Malukar Sayibu laughed at them & teased the villagers saying why you are praying mud statues & he ate all the food dedicated to Lord Aiyanar. Then he teased the villagers asking whether this mud horse can compete with me & win??? In that sudden spark of time the mud horse of Aiyanar start running, seeing this Malukar Sayibu got astonished & chased it to overtake it. After crossing few meters Malukar Sayibu's head got busted & the horse that he was riding become a mud statue and the mud horse of Aiyanar which got life and ran disappeared suddenly. After this incident whenever the villagers crossed the particular area they feel they were being followed or they feel haunted. Hence all the villagers started worrying & stopped going on that way. In such time all the villagers decide to accept this demon as God & pray him first before starting any other prayer or functions. And all the people went to that particular place & started praying. Then came the oracular prophecy from sky that his soul got liberated & he will remain as a savior for all the people & future generations from those families. Form then on it become custom that we pray him first before any important events. There is a tomb near the temple where he was buried, even these days some Muslims come & offer prayer there.

Tomb:


You can see a green building in little far.. that's his tomb.

Whole view of the temple:


Here if you see, apart from one horse all other horse will be seeing in other direction. That one odd horse was instated by my grand parents when they tried to keep it facing as other horses but it kept falling then they keep it facing South direction (facing the village where our grand parents lived) it stood firm. :-)

We normally offer Karumbu Sakkarai (Brown unrefined cane sugar) to this Lord.

Thaanthondri Perumal:

This temple is located at few kilometers from Karur. It's located in top of a small rock in a cave, but there is a temple now. Again few centuries ago there lived a cowboy & every evening his cows failed to produce milk. He was very disturbed by this behavior & hence one day he followed the cow whole day to see its activities. It was grassing in the rocky fields & later it went near a cave & started pouring the milk on one statue like stone in a cave there. Seeing this the cowboy got tensed but suddenly there came a voice from sky telling that it's Lord Vishnu in self incarnated form. On hearing this he rushed to the village & informed all the villagers there then they started praying this Lord. The name Thaan thondri came from the Tamil words for Self Incarnation. They also said that the statue was kept growing slowly for years & it was suppose to hit the roof of the cave. At that time they put the crown in the head of the statue & fitted it with a nail & after that it stops growing... (Something always remains a Myth......)

There is a restriction so I couldn't post the post of the main deity. Here I'm posting the photo of the Lord's marriage ceremony :-)


Kathireswari Amman:

She is one of the feminine family deity for us. There is an interesting story about her. Long time ago there were two sisters in our village & they belong to our particular Kulam (means a set of people belong to a same descendant). And due to some custom they asked the younger sister to enter the fire. Seeing this the elder sister was so sad & convinced the village people that she will enter into fire instead of her sister. But she have given birth to the a baby just now so she thought what to do. And finally decided to enter the fire with her kid. When he entered the fire along with her kid. The fire disappeared & she along with the child got disappeared too. From then on the people of our Kulam started praying her as our feminine deity. And her name is Kathireswari.

Tree under which the Lord resides:



All set for Prayer:


Jakkalamman Temple:

Above I mentioned that Kathireswari have just delivered a baby before entering the fire. And the midwife who performed the labor was this Jakkalamman. Hence we offer prayer to this deity & there is a belief that she will take care of all deliveries happening in our Kulam without any complications.

Paapathi Amman:

This particular God is specifically for the families who got descended from my Great Grand Father. Around 200 years ago my Great Grant Father's Cousin went to a monthly market in a village that's far away from their village. While returning back one small girl came along with them to our village. My great grand father's cousin brought this girl to my great grant father & said that he already got too many kids so he can't bring this kid & asked my great grand father to take care of the her. My great grand father accepted that & started taking care of her as his own kid. One day when they were feeding cows in their farm, the small girl suddenly become a snake & disappeared. Then came a oracular prophecy mentioning that she is a god came in favor for our family. Then we started offering prayers to her. There is a interesting sub-story that the real name of the girl is not Paapathi, it came from the community of the girl in which it born. There is a myth that people who knows the real name if they tell it to anybody they will become an orphan & face a brutal death. And one such incidence has happened hence none of them were dare to tell the real name. To my knowledge my grandfather (My Dad's Dad) was the last person who knows the name & he was so stubborn that he never told the name even in his death bed. I'm keep trying & asking lots of people to find it... Let's see..

There is a special festival for her. It happens once in 7 years. Everybody in our family will be in special restrictions for few weeks & they will prepare a clay pot from a wet sand & bring it without burning the pot. (Usually all the normal pots will be burned after making else it will broke easily while cooking). And using that they will try to boil the milk using the fire burning the camphor. If everything goes fine the milk will boil properly else the pot will get broken.


Paapathi Amman Temple:


Main Deity:



Height of Ego:


In the above picture you see two temples. Both are temple for Lord Vishnu. The temple in the left belongs to our Uncle's family & the right one is for our family. First there was only one temple that's our Uncle's. Later a decade ago our family old people planned to build a new temple. If you closely notice you can see the temple in the right will be little taller & broader compared to the one in the left. See how people are exposing their ego among their own relatives.... Nobody can change people like this....

Disclaimer: All the above stories are kind of heard only stories, there is no written proof. It took me 5 years to gather all these info from various people & all of them are above 70 years old. I want to get it saved somewhere before it get disappear like anything. If I get more info or additional details I will update it in the same post. This post may not interest many people sorry about that. There some superstitions that many people believe, though we don't like we should not tease it.