01A vow at Ujjain
Suriti Appaiah was a doli bearer with the army, posted to Ujjain in 1813 when cholera was killing thousands there. He and his companions prayed at the Mahakali temple of Ujjain that if the people were spared they would set up the Devi in Secunderabad. On their return in 1815 they installed a wooden murti of Mahankali here; a stone murti was installed later. The temple grew with the gifts of the people of the cantonment and was afterwards taken over by the endowments department.
02Lashkar Bonalu
Bonalu, from bhojanalu, a meal, is the offering of cooked rice with milk and jaggery in a decorated pot carried on the head by women to the Devi, thanking her for keeping epidemics away. On the Sunday of the Lashkar Bonalu in Ashadha, tens of thousands of women walk to Ujjaini Mahankali with lamps on their pots, the potharaju dancers whip the air ahead of them, and on Monday the Rangam, a prophecy for the year, is spoken by a woman in trance before the Devi.
The life of this place
- 1813Suriti Appaiah makes his vow at Ujjain during a cholera epidemic.
- 1815A wooden murti of Mahankali is installed at Secunderabad.
In General Bazaar, Secunderabad, about 1 km from Secunderabad station. Lashkar Bonalu falls in Ashadha (July).
