Day five is for Sabari Durga who is the form of Durga who kills Mahishasura; the buffalo headed demon. This is the subject of the famous song Mahishasura Mardini which you can find in the Multimedia section of the puja.net site. She is a coutry form of Durga who is shown with a bow and arrow and wide belt; sort of like the huntress Druga as seen below in a traditional painting.
At this point in the yagya, we are all settled into a routine and everything flows from one section of the ritual to another, with just enough differences to keep everyone alert and interested. Still, it is amazing that for five days in a row the pundits are in this one room reciting sanskrit pretty much non-stop from 8 AM to 2 PM. Somehow it is still interesting and enjoyable and it is going to be too bad when it ends.
Today’s Kanya and Suvasini pujas were enjoyable as usual although the little girl was not quite a thrilled with the whole process until she received her toys and new dress at the end.
Kumaran spends over an hour each day carefully cleaning and preparing the homa kund (fire yagya place). The decorations are made with rice flour, tumeric, and kumkum (tumeric mixed with lime juice to turn it a deep red color).
Today’s special ingredient is puffed rice.
Thankfully the rice burns reasonably well and so there is little smoke!
At the end of the homam the local monkey paid us another visit, although this time he just went right into the puja room and collected as many bananas as he could carry and walked out. From now on we keep the door closed! They are not particularly aggressive as long as you don’t get too close and they get what they wanted.
