The goddess Attukal bhagavathy is worshiped as the supreme mother , creater of all living beings and the mighty preserver as well as destroyer of them all.

Return journey

Ponkala payasam is believed to be the most favourite offering to the goddess.After ponkala , the women return home with the prasadam.

After ponkala, the chief priest of the temple and his assistants go around and bless the devotees by sprinkling holy water on them and their offerings.

The devotees assemble in the temple premises with the payasam ingredients , the earthern pots, bricks, and firewood.

The cooking preperation starts morning and by noon would be over. The queue of the women come for ponkala making stretches into few kilometers.

The women do this for the well being of their husband & children. Pongala means 'golden pot'. It is a sweet payasam made with a sweet offering of rice, jaggery, plantain & coconut in earthern pots.

PONKALA MAHOTSAVAM

Ponkala is the most important festival of attukal bhagavathi temple. Ponkala is a special temple practice prevelant in south kerala & tamil nadu. Ponkala comes the malayalam month of Makaram [ feb - march] .

Accroding to mythology , Attukal bhagavathy is supposed to be the divinised form of Kannaki.Kannaki is the famous heroine of chilapathikaram, written by Elenkovadikal.The story goes that after the destruction of anicient city of madurai in Tamil nadu, Kannaki left the city and reached kerala via kanniyakumari and on the way to kodungalloor took a sojourn at attukal.Kannaki is supposed to be the incarnation of Parvathy devi.

The Attukal Bhagavathy temple is one of the aicient temples of south india.This is popularly known as the Sabarimala of the women, as women form the majour portion of the devotees.