Shisharanni: Another unique ritualistic festival of Goa

Keri: The Mallikarjun temple at Gaondongrim, Canacona, on Sunday, celebrated Shisharanni, a ritual of cooking rice in an earthen pot on a chulha (stove) made of three human heads.
The Shisharanni is celebrated every three years on the fourth day after the full moon of the lunar month ‘Falgun’. It is held in the main hall of the Mallikarjun temple to the tune of folk music.
For the ritual, three chosen devotees lie down in three different directions, wrapping their heads with a wet cloth and pseudostem of banana. An earthen pot is placed on their heads, forming a stove, and a fire is lit by using pieces of Indian rosewood, locally known as Shiso.
In the pot, rice, mixed with human blood, is cooked as ‘charu’, which is then sprinkled in different directions. People move away to avoid its touch.
Gaondongrim sarpanch Dhillon Desai said, “We don’t know when Shisharanni started in our village. However, for many generations, our villagers strictly adhere to the traditional norms. We perform the rituals in the presence of colourfully dressed insignias of deities like Palavsatri and Tarangas amid the procession led by the devotees.”
Devidas Gaonkar, a tribal researcher from Canacona, told TOI, “As per tradition, there are 12 main temples of Mallikarjun in Goa, and the temple from Gaondongrim is believed to be the most ancient. It has immense socio-cultural heritage associated with it.”
As per the inscriptions found on the temple wall, it was reconstructed in 1778 and in the sanctum sanctuary, the cylindrical-shaped ‘Linga’ is worshipped with the metallic mask as Mallikarjun, along with Ganesh, Nandikeshwar, Mahamai, Sthambhadev and Bagilpaik as the affiliate deities.