Oachirakali
battle reenactment in Kerala

Oachira Kali is a festival that takes place in June in Oachira, Kerala, India. It is a mock battle between two groups, to the sound of drums, in a waterlogged field called padanilam at the Oachira Temple. Oachira Kali is celebrated in commemoration of the battle of Kayamkulam, fought between the Maharaja of Travancore Marthanda Varma and the Raja of Kayamkulam on the plains of Oachira Temple. The Padanilam or battlefield is a paddy field adjacent to the famous Oachira Parabrahma temple and the festivities are part of a ritual associated with the shrine.
“Oachirakali” enters the record as battle reenactment in Kerala. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Oachirakali, battle and reenactment can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oachirakali” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.