Note 4 — XI Some Agricultural Ceremonies

“On the morning of the ceremony, the priest of the local temple comes out therefrom, preceded by a man blowing a conch (Turbinella rapa) shell.4 This is a signal for the whole village, and every household sends out a male member, duly purified by a bath and copiously smeared with sacred ashes, to the fields, to gather some ears of paddy. Sometimes the paddy is brought from the temple, instead of the field. It is not necessary to pluck the paddy from one’s own fields. Free permission is given to pluck it from any field in which it may be ripe. When the paddy is brought near the house, the above said leaves are taken out from the gate-house, where they had been kept over night, and the ears of paddy are laid thereon. The bearer is met at the gate by a woman of the house with a lighted lamp. The new paddy is then carried to the house in procession, those assembled crying out ‘Fill, fill; increase, increase; fill the house; fill the baskets; fill the stomachs of the children.’ In a portion of the verandah, which is decorated with rice paint, a small plank, with a plantain leaf on it, is set. Round this the man who bears the paddy goes three times, and, turning due east, places it on the leaf. On the right is set the lighted lamp. An offering of cocoanuts and sweets is made to Ganapathi, and the leaves and ears of paddy are attached to various parts of the house, the agricultural implements, and even to trees. A sumptuous repast brings the ceremony to a close. At Palghāt, when the new paddy is carried in procession, the people say ‘Fill like the Kottāram in Kozhalmannam; fill like the expansive sands of the Perar.’ This Kottāram is eight miles west of Palghāt. According to Dr Gundert, the word means a store-house, or place where temple affairs are managed. It is a ruined building with crumbling walls, lined inside with laterite, and outside with slabs of granite. It was the granary of the Maruthūr temple adjoining it, and, the story goes that the supply in this granary was inexhaustible.