Chennai: The Swayambhu Mahalingeswarar Temple near Coonoor, a revered ancestral shrine of the indigenous Badaga community, is open to the public only for one specific day in the month of June. The annual event features traditional rituals and a sacred milk abhishekam, and devotees are allowed to have darshan of the deity.
The “Swayambhu Mahalingam” is located at Mudiyakki, also known as Alwarpet, near Coonoor in the Nilgiris district. The mystical shrine is a self-manifested (Swayambhu) Lingam that serves as the focal point of worship. Because this revered local site follows a strict and highly limited annual schedule, it remains open for just a few hours on a single day during its yearly festival and stays closed for the rest of the year.
For the current year, the temple was opened on June 29, 2026. On that day, the milk of a cow that had recently given birth to its first calf at Kodamalai was brought by the locals in a bamboo container to be used for the sacred bath (abhishekam) of the deity. The ghee prepared from this milk is also used to light the lamp in the temple. A cow that has recently given birth and has just started producing milk is commonly referred to as a ‘fresh cow’. The very first milk she produces immediately after calving is called colostrum (known in Tamil as Seembal).
According to senior journalist Senthilkumar, who told the Organiser correspondent, “The temple would be thrown open till the ghee lamp is burning. During this time, the locals, mainly from the Badaga community, would visit and pray before the deity. Normally, the lamp burns for nearly six hours. The locals stand in a queue to have darshan of the deity, a once-in-a-year opportunity, on June 29. The festival culminates with the distribution of prasadam to devotees. It is to be noted that the local tribals wear their traditional attire while visiting the temple.
