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The Sabarimala pilgrimage may be rooted in a long, rigorous and historical tradition, but there’s a distinctly modern spin to the prasadam offered at the shrine. While the basics haven’t changed — the mainstays of the Sabarimala prasadam are still the aravana and unniappam — the process of preparing them has undergone several modifications over the past couple of decades.
THE MANDALAM-MAKARAVILAKKU SEASON, which lasts from November to January, sees pilgrims thronging the Sabarimala temple, clad in the signature black lungi/mundu that is prescribed in the rituals, and carrying a small bundle of the same black cloth atop their heads. The bundle contains an offering for Lord Ayyappa: a husked coconut drained of its water (through one of its eyes), then refilled with pure ghee. The emptying of the coconut is meant to signify the shedding of worldly concerns and impurities; the filling up with ghee signifies taking in that which is pure. When the coconut is offered to the deity at Sabarimala, it symbolises the union of the self with the divine.
While the story behind this offering is clear enough, fewer sources explain how the aravana and unniappam became the signature prasadam of Sabarimala. One story claims that a young girl had made an offering of aravana — a thick and viscous rice and jaggery payasam, with roasted coconut pieces — to Lord Ayyappa, seeing him engrossed in meditation. Ayyappa liked the sweet, sticky pudding so much that it became the offering most commonly presented before him.
The unniappam features in many festivals and religious ceremonies in Kerala. A small, round and sweet snack, the unniappam is made of a batter of rice flour, overripe bananas, jaggery, coconut, sesame seeds and cardamom. A special cast iron wok is used to cook the unniappam: a deep vessel with separate, semicircular hollows. Oil is poured into the wok and once it heats up, a spoonful of batter is dropped into each of the hollows, where it deep fries and turns into a rich golden-brown ball. Jackfruit is used in place of banana on occasion.
(The unniappam enjoys the patronage of Ganpati as well. At the Kottarakara Sree Maha Ganapathi Temple, unniappams have been the de facto prasadam, as a nod to the sculptor Perumthachan, who carved the idol out of the root of a jackfruit tree. When the idol was ready, Perumthachan strung together a ‘garland’ of unniappams as an offering, and this has been the practice at the temple ever since.)
A well-made unniappam is usually soft and spongy, with a crisp, chewy edge/circumference. The ones that were made at Sabarimala, however, were said to be quite hard, mainly because the temple had to ensure a long shelf life for them. However, in recent years, the Travancore Devaswom Board, which manages the shrine, has tied up with the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) to ensure the unniappams can retain their softness while remaining fresh for up to 15 days.
Other innovations in its prasadam making operations include the shift to a completely mechanised/automated system since at least 2009 (although machines were in use for the prasadam prep by contractors even in 1999). The aravana is no longer prepared over wood fires and poured into massive ‘aravanthoni’ (long, boat-like troughs made out of kambaka wood) to cool, before being scooped out into plastic containers for devotees. Instead, the plant in the temple premises includes infrastructure for cooling and packing the aravana into the now iconic Sabarimala cans, once it is cooked.
Other tweaks include the ability to order and receive Sabarimala prasadam as part of a “Swamy” package through the Indian Postal Service. It includes aravana, ghee, turmeric, kumkum, vibhoothi and archana prasadam.
A decade ago, up to 1.8 crore cans of aravana would be sold during Mandalam-Makaravilakku season. The number is bound to have gone up since. As the Sabarimala season opens without the pandemic casting its shadow over it for the first time in three years, the aravana and unniappams too are set for a sweet return.
