Puja Procedure for Mariamman/Kaaliyamman

Puja is a traditional Hindu ritual of worship that involves offering prayers, flowers, food, and incense to deities. It is a significant spiritual practice in Hindu culture, aimed at expressing devotion, seeking blessings, and establishing a sacred connection with the divine. Overall, puja is a meaningful practice that nurtures faith, devotion, and cultural identity, enriching both individual and communal life. 🪔 I. Full Ingredient List

3 paan leaves (tips trimmed if custom requires)

• 2 supari (areca nuts)

• 2 coins

• 1 lime (plus another pierced on machete for balidaan), or nuts/jaggery piece/grape

• Kumkumam (red sindoor)

• Manjal (turmeric powder)

• Chandan / Santhanam (sandalwood powder)

• Durva grass (1 strand for Vinayagar cone)

• Camphor (karpuram)

• Sambrani (benzoin resin)

• Musk or non-alcoholic perfume

• 1 kuthu vilakku (traditional oil lamp)

• 1 banana leaf (washed clean)

• 1 Lota with water mixed with turmeric (manjal thannir)

• Sweet rice / sakkarai pongal

• 1 banana (for offering, with tilagam or honey/sugar)

• Lapsi

• Sohari (pinned with 3 cloves)

• Mohanbhog

• Fruits: apples, dragonfruit, pineapple, etc.

• 2 coconuts (1 brown, 1 green)

• 1 machete (with lime pierced on tip)

• 1 vasthram (cloth for Amman)

• 1 neem leaf garland (can be bundled with oleander if custom allows)

• 1 bamboo pole (for kodi/flag)

• 1 vesti cloth (to tie to the bamboo)

• 1 lota with dhaar (or manjal thannir if no dhaar) Place your paan leaf before the deity, it must face east or north, never west or south. Place a coin on the paan leaf, as well as a thambulam. Mix turmeric powder with a few drops of water to create a dough from the turmeric, shape it into a cone and place a durva grass strand in it. As per hindu tradition, we always pray to Vinayagar/Pillaiyar (Ganesh) before anything, as he is the one who opens the path as well as closes it, so we make this turmeric cone as a way to encompass that energy. After you make that cone, place a sindoor dot on the cone. Take a lime, place manjal powder, sindooram, and chandan as a tilagam. This will be used as an offering for Amman. Place this on the left of the Vinayagar cone on the paan leaf. Take your banana leaf if you have it, facing north or east as well (if your murthi is facing west so you can fact east while praying to it, keep it at the north). Wash it well because it can have spiders or stuff like that on it. To begin, sprinkle turmeric water (manjal thannir) on the area where you will be doing the prayer and say whatever cleansing mantra you know, I say:
  

oṃ apavitraḥ pavitro vā sarvāvasthāṃ gato’pi vā

yaḥ smaretpuṇḍarīkākṣaṃ sa bāhyābhyantaraḥ śuciḥ Now you will say the asanam (invocation) prayer for Amman:

tâm ma a váha jātavedo lakṣmīmanapagāminim |

yasyām hirányam vindeyam gāmaśvam puruṣānaham ||

anekaratnasamyuktam nānāmaņigaņānvitam |

idam hemamayam divyamāsanam pratigṛhyatām ||

om śrīdurgāparādevyai namaḥ navaratnakhacita suvarņasimhāsanam

samarpayāmi Light a vilakku (diya) for Amman, or two. You can use the traditional kuthu vilakku, and it should be marked with tilagam of kumkum, santhanam, and manjal. You can now say:

ārdrām puşkariņīm pustim pingalām padma-mālinīm |

candrām hiranmayīm lakṣmīm jātavedo mamāváha ||

sājyam trivarti-samyuktam vahninā yojitam mayā |

dīpam gṛhāņa deveśi trailokya-timirā-paham ||

om śrī durgā parādevyai namaḥ dīpam darśayāmi |

Now you can place a tilagam (mark) on Ammans forehead of Santhanam, then a dot of sindur in the middle:

śrīkhandam candanam divyam gandhādhyam sumanoharam |

vilepanam suraśreṣthe candanam pratigṛhyatām ||

kunkumam kāmadam divyam kāminīkāmasambhavam | kunkumenārcitā devī kunkumam pratigṛhyatām ||

om śrīdurgāparādevyai namaḥ santhanam-kunkumam samarpayāmi | This is where normally if you have a thappu player, they would start to play the Call-up hand of invocation as you start to lay out the offerings. As you lay them out, you can chant the Mariamman Thalattu, or Amman Virutham: Spray some perfume around three times, clockwise Offer three, seven, or nine sticks of incense by the feet of Amman Offer a lime or neem leaf garland to Amman, as well as flower garlands by sprinkling it with some manjal thannir and then cleansing it over a lit camphor and sambrani three or seven times clockwise by circling it around both. Then touch it to her feet and then to your head three times, and finally put it on Amman. Offer now Sakkarai Pongal (in the Caribbean tradition, we use sweet rice due to North Indian and European influence). Place a banana on it, facing north, and dot it with three sindoor and manjal tilagam. You can also sprinkle some sakkarai (sugar) onto the banana rather than dotting it with the sindoor and manjal, alongside honey. Then place down lapsi and sohari (with three cloves pinned into it), as well as mohanbhog. Lay down around this several fruits: Apples, dragonfruits, pineapples, most importantly you should have two coconuts, one brown and one green, as well as a lime that should be pierced onto the machete you will later use to do Balidaan. Apply tilagam to all the coconuts you are using, as well as to the lime. Cut some of the fruits (omitting the lime and coconuts) and place them on the altar, you can just split them in half. By the murthi, offer down some clothing, topped with a thambulam, which is a paan leaf with a supari on top as well as a dried manjal stick and cardamom + cloves on top, and optionally rice grains (akshat). Cleanse like you did the mala, over the sambrani and karpuram three or seven times clockwise, and then bringing it to the deities feet, to your head, and doing that twice more. Then place it at the feet of the deity or lay down the paan leaf by the food, and place the clothing on Amman. Take the Kodi (Jhandi flag) and do the same procedure as the clothing, waving it three times over the sambrani and karpuram etc etc. It should be placed on a plate that has: A lota of dhaar or manjal thanni if you dont have dhaar, a neem leaf bundle (optionally with oleander flowers also in the bundle), a thambulam, and a piece of cloth separate from the jhandi flag called the "vesti" which will come up later. Place the dhaar on the plate by Amman. Now the balidaan: Get the lime on the machete, and split it in four slices (not fully). Then rip the lime piece off, get two lime pieces, one in each hand, and squeeze them, crossing your hands over to form an x, and then doing it with your left hand under and swing that baby and let it land in all four directions (yes you literally just throw it). Another thing you can do is cut the lime fully in half, do that squeeze and cross over thing, and throwing it to the east and north or squeezing it over a lit camphor piece and throwing it. Take the brown coconut first and pour some manjal thannir over it. Take the coconut in your left hand, a pinch of sambrani in your right hand, and pray deeply to Amman asking her to remove all your obstacles and ego by the time the coconut breaks. After, put the pinch of sambrani into the incense pot w the charcoals, and wave the coconut over it three times. Then, burst the green coconut (just do a large swing of your machete into the coconut and it goes boom with a water splash, you do not have to open it fully). Then, take your coconut, with the tip facing Amman (the tip facing away is done for funeral rites), and break it into a bucket, removing the fibrous top to reveal the eyes of the coconut as a symbol of revealing our inner self and removing those obstacles that may block our vision. Put some thilagam on each coconut half and place a lit camphor in each coconut half. Prepare the vesti now: Take a paan leaf, a supari, coin, and clove/cardamom and wrap it in a small, yet long cloth. Tie it, and then this will be tied to the bamboo stick where you will place your kodi, your flag. Cleanse it with the sambrani and karpuram Apply three, five, or seven tilagam on the bamboo pole, going upwards. Then, sprinkle some manjal thannir on the bamboo stick. Apply thilagam at the top of the flag pole as well. Now you can wrap the flag around. Count three joints of bamboo down, and thats where you will tie your vesti along with the neem + oleander bouquet. To place the flag into the soil, place a lit karpuram and dig the bamboo pole on top of it. Then, pour your dhaar in the area, placing the lota to face down on the soil, touch it, bring your finger to your head and then your heart, and then you can take it back. Now, you make aarthi. Take some sambrani, kneel down, pray on behalf of everyone doing puja with you or just on behalf of the world if you are alone. Then, do the aarthi by waving the lit camphor on a plate along with the sambrani clockwise seven times. The motion is like, it starts at your chest and as you go to the top of the circle it goes head level, and then back to your chest. Offer manjal thannir on the water and then do pradakshina and namaskaram by bowing down to Amman. People can now take their share of prasadam off the banana leaf and eat it if you wanna finish here, OR you can continue singing devotional songs so those attending the puja can do Sami Attam (enter trance) by Amman to the beat of drums. If not, just end it right there and take some food! This is the traditional Caribbean Shakta way of doing the puja. Many Caribbean Shakta temples in North America, like the Shri Mariamman temple in Florida, often syncretize Caribbean Shakta beliefs with more orthodox, vedic Tamil Amman worship (which is what I personally do because I first started my path in Hinduism within a Shaiva-Siddhanta Agamic temple, later going to Caribbean Shakta temples. Yes, im a Hindu convert if you did not know). So you will often see priests first say the agamic prayers, then do the Caribbean procedure. They may also offer traditional Tamil food rather than Caribbean foods of North Indian origin (usually) like Kheer, lapsi and sohari, and mohanbhog. But do note, the procedure I shared here is not of this syncretic blend, it is the folk manner it is done in Madrassi communities in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. French Caribbean traditions are largely similar just less complex. Me personally, I do not do this type of puja as my at-home puja, I would do an Agamic-style puja and most Caribbean Shaktas (unless they have a house temple) would simply do a North Indian Bhojpuri style prayer service called a Jhandi service (which I do sometimes, but rarely because my hindu upbringing was Tamil and Telugu, which is quite different) because this type of puja i shared here is most commonly done in Kali temples rather than in someones home, again unless someone has a home-temple where they can do these elaborate pujas. If you want to do the more Vedic, Agamic approach, here is a resource for it: https://stotranidhi.com/en/sri-durga-devi-shodashopachara-puja-in-english/