Mannarasala Ayilyam: the day the Mother carries the Serpent King home

As the temple describes the great Ayilyams, the deities are decorated in the morning and the chief priest, the head of the temple's hereditary family, performs the first pujas. At the family's illam (ancestral house) a padmam, a sacred geometric diagram, is drawn as the platform for the main Ayilyam puja.

In the afternoon comes the Ezhunnallathu. The Valiya Amma leads it, bearing the festival image of Sree Nagaraja; the Cheriya Amma, the next senior woman of the family, follows with the image of the goddess Sarpayakshi, and the two senior-most men of the family carry the images of the goddesses Nagachamundi and Nagayakshi on their heads. The procession is a homecoming: in the temple's account, Nagaraja lives on in the Nilavara, an underground chamber of the illam, as Anantha in deep meditation.

At the illam the Amma performs the Ayilyam puja, followed by a Guruthi puja for Nagayakshi and Nagachamundi. The day closes with the Thattel Noorum Palum, an offering of rice flour and milk led by the family head, and the Amma returns to the temple for a final darshan. The Ezhunnallathu is held only on the three great Ayilyams of the year, in Kanni, Thulam and Kumbham.

At Mannarasala the highest ritual authority belongs not to a male priest but to a Brahmin woman of the family, the Mannarasala Amma. The temple traces this to a legend: when Nagaraja, born as the serpent son of the house, withdrew into the Nilavara, he asked that his mother herself should worship him, and the duty has passed ever since to the senior-most woman of the family. The Amma, regarded as the deity's mother, lives as a brahmacharini, in celibacy and austerity, and enters the sanctum herself on appointed days, among them the twelve days before the Ayilyam of Kanni and of Thulam.

The temple keeps three great Ayilyams. Kanni Ayilyam marks Nagaraja's birth anniversary and, in the temple's words, holds the most profound ritual significance; Kumbham Ayilyam honours Anantha. Thulam Ayilyam became the famous one through the Maharajas of Travancore. When a royal visit due on Kanni Ayilyam was delayed to Thulam Ayilyam, the palace paid for that festival and endowed the temple with tax-free lands.

Offerings (vazhipad) are booked at the temple counters, some also online; ritual items such as serpent images are sold at the temple's stall, and items from outside are allowed only under the temple's rules.

On Ayilyam the temple is at its busiest, and the Alappuzha district collector usually declares a local holiday a day or two before.

The temple is about 2 km from National Highway 66 at Haripad, between Alappuzha and Kollam.