The heritage village of Aranmula is home to many myths. One of them, centred on the Onam festival, is a story of atonement.
The myth is of an elderly Dalit woman, from a farming family, who froze to death in an overnight torrential rain, awaiting her family’s share of paddy on the eve of Thiruvonam from the granary of the Kannangattu Madhom, controlled by an upper caste Hindu family.
It also speaks of how a Nair family still pays respects to her by offering her prayers. The story is testimony to the harmonious community living that prevailed in the Pampa river basin. Legend has it that the Dalit woman waited the entire night in rain but the Kannangattu Madhom chieftain forgot to turn up to offer her share of paddy. She was found dead the next morning beside a granite piece where she used to receive the paddy.
Her death was a shock to the chief of the Kannagattu Madhom and the family started worshipping the elderly woman, whom their later generations reverently named as ‘Muram-choodi Muthassi’ — meaning grandma carrying a sieve used for winnowing grain — (muram).
The Kannangattu family still worships the woman whose statue has been carved on a granite block fixed to the basement of a banyan tree near the Madhom, says N.V. Gopalan Nair, who is the eldest member of the family.
Aranmula Sree Parthasarathy Temple authorities offer betel leaves, tobacco, and ‘dakshina’ in reverence for the Dalit woman before the Kodiyettu ceremony marking the beginning of the temple festival every year.
Day-long fast
The eldest male member of the Moosad family of Aranmula, whose ancestors were believed to be in control of the Kannangattu Madhom granary, observes a day-long fast on Thiruvonam day to atone the wrong deed of their ancestors.
The myth of Muram-choodi Muthassi has references in the historical texts Aranmula Vilasom written by Villadathu Raghavan Nambiar and Aranmula Hamsappattu written by Nedumbayil Kochukrishnan Aasan.