Attukal Temple
— — a courtyard the women fill before dawn.
Not only on a wall.
“The small temple to Attukal Amma sits on a side street in Thiruvananthapuram, the kind of place that does not announce itself until the morning of Pongala. On that one day each spring the surrounding lanes fill with women, with clay pots, with the slow rise of cooking smoke. The rest of the year it is quieter — bells, a queue, a granite courtyard worn smooth.
Attukal Temple, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Attukal Bhagavathy Temple stands in the Attukal neighbourhood of Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala on India's southwest coast, about two kilometres south of the older Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple. The principal deity is the goddess Attukal Amma, worshipped as a form of Bhadrakali. The current sanctum and gopuram date to the late twentieth century, though the shrine itself is much older. The temple draws devotees from across Kerala and the Tamil-speaking south, and is reached by road from the city centre or from Thiruvananthapuram Central railway station, three kilometres north.
The temple's calendar turns on Attukal Pongala, a ten-day festival held in the Malayalam month of Kumbham, usually February or March. On the ninth day, women cook a sweet rice offering in clay pots over open fires lining the streets for kilometres around the temple. The 2009 gathering was recognised by Guinness World Records as the largest gathering of women for a religious activity, with an estimated 2.5 million participants. Men do not light the Pongala fires; the day belongs to the women, and the city closes around them.
The temple is open to all visitors and admission is free. Standard darshan hours run from before dawn until late morning and again in the evening, with the exact times posted at the gate and updated for festival weeks. Modest dress is expected; men typically remove shirts before entering the inner sanctum, in Kerala temple custom. Photography inside the sanctum is restricted. Travellers reach the temple by autorickshaw from Thiruvananthapuram Central station, a short ride south through the Manacaud and Attukal lanes.