Flag hoisting being held at the Mondaikad Bhagavathy Amman Temple on Sunday.
Thousands of devotees on Sunday thronged the famed Mondaikad Bhagavathy Amman Temple to witness the ‘Kodiyettu’ (flag-hoisting ceremony), marking the commencement of the 10-day “Koda” festival in this coastal town in Kaniyakumari district.
Temple Tantri Edakkode Sankaranarayana Iyer initiated the festival rituals in the morning. Telangana Governor Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan, and former Kerala Minister V.S. Sivakumar among others, were present on the occasion. The legendary Koda will take place on March 12 attended by lakhs of devotees from the various regions of Tamil Nadu and the southern parts of Kerala.
“Valiyapadukka,” a major midnight ritual of the festival, will be performed on March 8 and the procession of “Valiya Theevatti” on March 11, before the festival concludes with the “Odukku Pooja” at midnight on March 12. During the festival season, thousands of devotees reach Mondaikad from south Kerala. The Tamil Nadu government has made elaborate arrangements to regulate the flow of pilgrims.
Special inter-State bus services are being operated between Thiruvananthapuram and Mondaikad by the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) and Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation. The Tamil Nadu police deployed more than 1,000 special personnel and a contingent of Marine Police for security and crowd management.
The Mondaikad Devi Temple is situated on the coast of the Arabian Sea, near Colachel in the erstwhile Travancore princely state. Despite being in Tamil Nadu’s Kaniyakumari district, the temple rituals and festivals are conducted as per the rituals and traditions followed in Kerala.