Onam (Thiruvonam)

When it falls

The day the star Tiruvōṇam (Śravaṇa) falls in the Malayalam month of Ciṅṅam, in late August or September. The festival runs ten days from Atham to Tiruvōṇam; the fourth day after is the end of the season.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

How Vedic Phala finds the date

Onam is a Malayalam solar-calendar festival, and its climax is the day of Tiruvōṇam nakṣatra in the month of Ciṅṅam. It does not follow the simple month–tithi table used for many north Indian festivals. Vedic Phala treats Onam as a regional computed observance and presents the date supplied by the calendar rule rather than pretending it is a fixed August anniversary. The star, the solar month and Kerala’s civil observance must be read together.

The ten-day count begins at Atham and the flower carpet grows until Tiruvōṇam. Boat races, the Thrikkakara temple cycle and school or government holidays may occupy a wider span than the central star day. The story of Mahābali’s return gives the sequence its centre, but the exact programme is local. A diaspora celebration may be moved to the nearest weekend for attendance; that practical date should not be confused with the almanac date displayed by the app.

The story

King Mahābali, the asura ruler of Kerala, was so just and so loved that the gods grew jealous. Viṣṇu came to him as the dwarf Vāmana and asked for three paces of land; the king granted it, and the dwarf grew until two steps covered the earth and the sky. For the third the king offered his own head, and was pressed down into the underworld. His one request was to visit his people once a year, and Onam is that visit: the houses are decorated and the tables laid so that he finds them as happy as he left them.

It is also the harvest, the end of the monsoon and the first rice of the year, and it is kept by every Malayali regardless of religion. The government of Kerala runs it as the state festival with a week of cultural programmes in Thiruvananthapuram.

Wherever Malayalis live the Onam sadya is served on a banana leaf on a Sunday near the day: in Dubai, in the Gulf generally, in London and New Jersey, the halls are booked a year ahead.

How the day is kept

• Pūkkaḷam: a flower carpet laid at the front door each morning from Atham, one ring added a day, so that by Tiruvōṇam it has ten.
• Vallamkali, the snake-boat races: the Nehru Trophy at Alappuzha on Punnamada lake and the Aranmula Uthrattathi race a few days after Onam, with a hundred rowers to a boat singing the vanchippāṭṭu (boat song).
• Athachamayam at Tripunithura opens the season with a procession of every folk art of Kerala; Pulikali, the tiger dance of painted men, is Thrissur's fourth-day parade.
• Onakkoḍi, the new clothes given by elders; Tiruvātira, the women's dance in a circle around a lamp; Onappoṭṭan, the masked figure who visits houses in Malabar.
• Onattappan, a pyramid of clay for Vāmana or Mahābali, is set on the pūkkaḷam and worshipped.

At the table

The Onasadya: twenty or more dishes on a banana leaf, served in a fixed order and eaten by hand, ending in pāyasam. Sāmbār, avial, thoran, olan, kālan, erisseri, pachadi, pickles, pappadam and banana chips; the ada pradhaman pāyasam is the one the day is remembered by.

More harvest festivals