Significance of Pillayar Nonbu

Pillayar nombu is a nombu celebrated exclusively by Naattukkottai Nagarathars.

This post is intended for young chettiar couples living far from their families, who want to know about this nonbu and celebrate it at home.

The significance of performing this nombu, is that we pray to Lord Ganesha, requesting him to remove all the obstacles in our life. 

I have heard that there are 3 versions of the story behind this nonbu. I am sharing the one that my mom has told me...

A teenage girl was ill-treated by her step-mother. On karthigai deepam day, this step-mother's diamond ring was missing and she accused this girl of stealing her ring.

This girl went to a pillayar temple and prayed to Lord Ganesha that she will prove herself as innocent and find the ring.

So she started saying her prayers to Lord Ganesha, by removing one thread a day from her cotton saree for 21 days. She promised to the God that, when she proves her innocence, she will make the number of threads she has on that day as a wick and make a deepam with rice flour and jaggery and offer to Lord Ganesha. 

On the 21st day, from the karthigai deepam,  when Sashti Thithi and Sadhayam Nakshathra join, Lord Ganesha made the ants start from her and go all the way to her house into an ant hole, where the diamond ring had fallen off. Thus her innocence was proved and as she had promised she made the mountain shaped villakku with rice flour and jaggery and the 21 threads as the wick and lit it up for Lord Ganesha. 

That is the reason we celebrate pillayar nombu, on the 21st day from the karthigai deepam, by taking 21 threads from a cotton veshti/ dhoti or nowadays a cotton towel which is easily available in the market.

First, we have to make illai maavu using rice flour and palm jaggery. You can find my recipe by clicking on ILLAI MAAVU.

Then, soak a 1/4 cup raw rice in water for 2 hours and grind it into a smooth batter. You are going to use this as the medium to draw the nadu veettu kolam like in the picture below.

Since this kolam is made from wet rice batter, you have to check for an auspicious time on the day of pillayar nombu, and put the kolam on the floor and let it dry. The part of the kolam that makes it beautiful is the two-line dots around the entire kolam.

I will try to post the step by step kolam procedure another time.

The illais are made in the shape of a small mountain, which is the simplest form of making Lord Ganesha and lit up like a villakku and eating with the deepam. 

You will need to use fine sand or salt to dry roast the rice kernel to make Nel pori, sesame seeds to make ellu pori, corn kernels to make cholappori, pearl millet to make kambu pori and flattened rice to make aval pori. These poris will be offered to Pillayar.

On the right side of the Pillayar, we have to have keep a stick wrapped with nellu naathu, aavaaram poo, kannupillaipoo and kondaipoo. But nowadays as these flowers are not available to everyone,  we can just wrap that stick with yellow mums. 

On the left side of the Pillayar we light a pure silver lamp with ghee. 

The eldest person in the family will light the ellai in this ghee lamp and eat first and then will give one to each member of the family from the eldest to the youngest. 

Then, for calculating the number of illai to be taken in the family, count the members in the family. If there are 3 members in the family,  then we should make the first one for pillayar, plus three for the family members and one more because the total has to be an odd number.

Even if someone is expecting a baby, one extra ellai is given to the mother for that unborn baby. 

A tip to eat the illais with the deepam is to have some saliva accumulated in your mouth and put the illai into that and eat. Then it won't burn you toungue. 

With the  rice batter that we made for kolam, use a cotton thread to make a house on the wall in the right side of the Pillayar. This has to done only by the ladies. It is called thumbu pidippadhu.

Apart from making this ellai, we have to prepare the panniyaram, vadai and vellai panniyaram, kadalai urundai, ellurundai, poriurundai.

I have shared what I have learned from my mom from my childhood. 

Happy Pillayar Nonbu!