{"id":13,"date":"2021-07-18T04:05:07","date_gmt":"2021-07-18T04:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/?p=13"},"modified":"2021-07-22T20:29:07","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T20:29:07","slug":"kudai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/esala\/kudai\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking with the Lord"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kataragama God’s twelve-man Canopy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For millennia, the elusive Kataragama god has been honoured in diverse ways by His devotees and servants. One of these traditions–that of the kudai<\/em> or royal umbrella, flourished in the last century. I know, because I was often one of the twelve pilgrims who assembled and carried His elephant-sized canopy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every evening during the waxing moon of Aesala (July-August), accompanied by His retinue of R\u0101jak\u0101riya servants and mounted upon His tusker, Sw\u0101mi (Kataragama Deviyo) emerges from His temple compound shortly after dark each evening to pay a short visit to Valli Amma in her residence situated a short distance away in a forest setting beside the gently flowing Menik Ganga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Waiting for Sw\u0101mi.<\/em> Kataragama P\u0101da Y\u0101tr\u0101 pilgrims, including the author at left, are dwarfed beside the fully assembled canopy-umbrella. Twelve male foot pilgrims would loft it over the tusker elephant that bears the Kataragama god’s presence. Photo \u00a9 1991 Xavier Zimbardo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since ancient times, canopies or umbrellas have been the symbols of royalty. When he visited India in 1911, King George of England walked beneath a royal umbrella. The umbrella, carried by an attendant as an emblem of royalty, not only shaded the king from the sun, but also symbolized his power in procession, battle and the hunt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The earliest Buddhist sculptures did not portray the person of the Buddha, but rather objects associated with him: an empty platform, a bodhi tree, a cobra or an honorific umbrella all signify his presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kudai<\/em> was cleaned and deployed annually by us (male P\u0101da Y\u0101tr\u0101 devotees) from the 1950’s when it was conceived, designed, built and donated by Jaffna devotees. The tradition was that only male P\u0101da Y\u0101tr\u0101 pilgrims (i.e. who had kept their vows to walk to Kataragama) may handle the heavy and unwieldy structure built of solid aluminium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A twelve-man team was recruited to assemble and lift the huge kudai<\/em> or canopy over Swami’s elephant each evening during the annual perahera at Kataragama. The canopy was to be carried by male foot pilgrims who had kept their vows to walk the distance from Jaffna. Photo \u00a9 1989 by Patrick Harrigan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Kataragama god’s canopy or kudai<\/em> (literally, ‘umbrella’) had been designed, constructed and donated by Jaffna devotees in the 1950s, hundreds of whom also walked from Jaffna to Kataragama in the annual karai y\u0101thirai<\/em> or P\u0101da Y\u0101tr\u0101. It consisted of eighteen solid aluminium bars screwed together to form six two-storey high poles that lofted the cross-bars along with the gaily embroidered canvas canopy itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Twelve male foot pilgrims were recruited to assemble and lift the massive canopy. Three solid-aluminium bars had to be screwed together to form each of six two-storey high shafts. At top in Tamil the banner reads \u0b93\u0bae\u0bcd \u0bae\u0bc1\u0bb0\u0bc1\u0b95\u0bbe \u0bb5\u0bb0\u0bc1\u0b95\u0bbe (‘Om Muruga, come!’) and \u0b93\u0bae\u0bcd \u0b95\u0bc1\u0b95\u0ba9\u0bc7 \u0bb5\u0bb0\u0bc1\u0b95\u0bbe (‘Om Mysterious or Secret One, come!’) Photo \u00a9 1989 by Patrick Harrigan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jaffna devotees embroidered sacred phrases on all four sides or directions, beckoning the Lord to ‘come’, while also reminding Tamil devotees that He is present always and everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By tradition, only male devotees who had walked the distance from Jaffna at least once were allowed to handle the elephant-sized canopy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However humble their backgrounds, Kataragama P\u0101da Y\u0101tr\u0101 pilgrims, including the author, considered it a deep honour and privilege to walk beside the Lord bearing His marvelous canopy, while also bearing witness to His mysterious activities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mounted upon a tusker, Sw\u0101mi emerges from His temple compound to visit Valli Amma each evening of the festival. At top in Tamil the banner reads \u0b93\u0bae\u0bcd \u0bae\u0bc1\u0bb0\u0bc1\u0b95\u0bbe \u0bb5\u0bb0\u0bc1\u0b95 (‘Om Muruga, come!’). Photo \u00a9 1991 Xavier Zimbardo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Until 1983, there were always plenty of male foot pilgrims from Jaffna who would only too gladly accept the honour of walking beside Sw\u0101mi and bearing His kudai<\/em>. However, by the 1990s when there were hardly enough such men that even a foreign devotee, Patrick Harrigan, was needed to complement the twelve-man team, as seen in the above 1991 photo by Xavier Zimbardo<\/a>. The kudai<\/em> and its tradition have since been retired since it fell into disrepair in the 1990s and became more and more unstable and difficult to handle safely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"However
However humble their backgrounds, Kataragama P\u0101da Y\u0101tr\u0101 pilgrims, including the author, considered it a deep honour and privilege to walk beside the Lord bearing His marvelous canopy, while also bearing witness to His mysterious activities. Photo ca. 1989.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

For more about the history of royal umbrellas, see: “In the Shade of the Royal Umbrella<\/a>“.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kataragama God’s twelve-man Canopy For millennia, the elusive Kataragama god has been honoured in diverse ways by His devotees and servants. One of these traditions–that of the kudai or royal umbrella, flourished in the last century. I know, because I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6,5,3,4],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-esala","tag-devotees","tag-esala","tag-pada-yatra","tag-perahera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105,"href":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kataragama.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}