6. AnnadAna Sivan
"The cooked rice (sAdam) would have been gathered into a very huge heap, looking dazzling white like the Himalayas. Even if an elephant drowns in the sAmbAr andA (huge vessel containing sAmbAr), you wouldn't know. It is said that Himalachala Sivan created a huge pit of food for the sake of Gundodaran during the Meenakshi Kalyanam (Shiva's celestial wedding with Meenakshi at Madurai). In the same way, this poor brahmana Sivan did a marvellous and mighty task." Kanchi Paramacharya was reminiscing about the annadhAnam festivities of Sri Ramaswamy Iyer of Tepperumal Nallur, Tamilnadu, who was more popularly (and appropriately) known as 'Annadhana Sivan'. These food festivities took place in Kumbakonam during the Mahamaham festivals in the years 1921 and 1933 and fed several thousand people. Since the middle of the eighteenth century until the middle of the twentieth, Kumbakonam was the headquarters of Kanchi Matam. Sivan virtually made the Matam his home from ...