Onam ഓണം

Overview

Onam is Kerala’s harvest festival and its largest, ten days in the Malayalam month of Chingam (August–September) ending on Thiruvonam, the day of Shravana nakshatra. Its story is Mahabali, the asura king under whom Kerala remembers a golden age, sent to the underworld by Vishnu in the form of the dwarf Vamana and allowed to visit his people once a year — on Onam. The state welcomes him with the pookalam (a floral carpet at every door), the Onasadya (the feast on a banana leaf), the snake-boat races on the backwaters, and new clothes (Onakkodi). It is kept by Malayalis of every faith.

Story and scripture

The Bhagavata Purana’s eighth canto (chapters 15–23) tells of Bali, grandson of Prahlad, who conquers the three worlds by his virtue; Vishnu, born as the brahmin dwarf Vamana, asks him for three paces of land, grows to cover the earth and the heavens in two, and with the third, placed on Bali’s head, sends him to Sutala — with the boon of Vishnu’s own guardianship at his door. Kerala’s version, sung in the Maveli Charitham, makes Bali the ideal king — Maveli nadu vaneedum kalam, “when Maveli ruled the land” — and gives him the yearly return. Thrikkakara temple near Kochi, dedicated to Vamana, is held to be the site of the third step and is the festival’s ritual home; the Onam of the whole state is counted from its flag-hoisting on Atham.

The ten days

• Atham: the pookalam begins with a single ring of yellow flowers; the Thrikkakara flag goes up; the Athachamayam procession at Tripunithura.
• Chithira to Uthradam: the carpet grows by a ring each day; on Uthradam, the eve, the shopping and the cooking; the Onathappan — clay pyramids of Vamana and Bali — placed in the pookalam.
• Thiruvonam: the day itself. A bath before dawn, new clothes, the Onathappan worshipped, and the Onasadya at midday — twenty or more dishes on a banana leaf, ending with payasam. Mahabali is understood to visit each house on this day.
• Avittam and Chathayam: the Onathappan immersed; the pookalam taken up; the games and dances — thiruvathirakali, pulikali (the tiger dance of Thrissur), and the boat races — continue.

Jaap. Vishnu’s name, for Vamana; the Vishnu page’s mantras are the ones to keep. There is no Onam-specific chalisa or aarti in the Malayalam tradition, and this page links none.

Regional forms

• Central Kerala (Kochi, Thrissur, Kottayam): Thrikkakara, the Athachamayam, the pulikali.
• Alappuzha and the backwaters: the Vallam Kali — the Nehru Trophy snake-boat race and the older Aranmula Uthrattathi race on the day after Thiruvonam.
• Malabar: Onam kept with the same days; the Onavillu (a decorated bow) offered at the Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram on Thiruvonam.
• Malayalis outside Kerala: the Onasadya on the nearest weekend, and the pookalam competitions of the Gulf and the Indian cities.
• Tamil Nadu: the same Thiruvonam nakshatra in the month of Avani is Avani Onam, a smaller observance at Vishnu temples.

The date

Thiruvonam (Shravana) nakshatra current at sunrise in Thiruvananthapuram, within the solar month of Chingam (Simha). If the nakshatra covers two sunrises the first is kept and the row says so. The other nine days are counted back from it; only Thiruvonam is listed in the table.