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| Fire walking .Cartoon Motivators slideshare.com |
People from South India 'celebrate' the Theemithi (in Tamil Thee means fire, Mithi means stomp or walk) or fire walking festival by walking barefoot across a bed of hot burning wood to propitiate the Hindu goddess Draupadi Amman. This ritual has been around for centuries, particularly in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. It is celebrated during the Tamil month of Aippasi ( October and November). The fire-walking ceremony is also celebrated in Mauritius, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries where a large chunk of South Indians live.
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| Quotes of Vivekananda. SlideShare |
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| Fire-walking or thimithi, Tamil Nadu, India. Daily Musings - Tumblr |
The participants are supposed to wear their dress dipped in water mixed in turmeric and wear the neem leaves around their dress. In some places, participants carry in their bare hands a hot mud pot containing burning wood and walk through the fire-pit. The size of the fire pit varies and normally it will be 20 feet long and 6 to 9 feet wide.
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| Thimithi (fire walking), Tamil Nadu, India ios.com |
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| Ambalavaanar Alayam,S.Africa hinduismtoday.com |
Above Image: Ambalavaanar Alayam, also known as the Cato Manor Second River Temple South Africa. In the second week of March 2025, this temple celebrated its 150th anniversary of fire-walking. Said to be home to Africa’s oldest Hindu temple and the birthplace of firewalking in South Africa, every year, hundreds of devotees gather to test their faith and courage by walking barefoot over burning embers in the temple. It was once the center of a busy Indian community until apartheid forced them away. Now, devotees who are scattered, travel from many far off places to attend the temple’s various rituals...........
The ritual begins with the local priest mostly pujari(s), carrying a pot of hot burning wood in his hand and a pot containing sacred water on his head, followed by the participants This Thimithi festival is done in honor of Draupadi, wife of Pancha Pandavas of Mahabharata. The Pandava brothers were cheated by their cousins led by Duryodhana who not only took away their kingdom, etc., but also stooped to the lowest level and insulted Draupadi in public which no woman could tolerate. She took a vow to comb her hair till the Pandavas emerged victorious in their battle against their cousins. With help from Lord Krishna, who acted as charioteer to Arjuna (one of the Pandava brothers) at last, Pandava brothers recovered whatever lost and Draupadi combed her disheveled hair after Dushasana had been killed. He was the one who made an assault on her modesty right before other men. Draupadi walked through the bed of fire and came out as fresh as she could be like a blossoming flower. In some villages in the past, scenes from Mahabharata were enacted at night in the form of dance drama but, this tradition is on the decline.
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| Crossing of black cat. The Hindu |
As for safety, minor accidents do occur and occasionally children trip and fall on the bed and burn injuries When the devotees walk on the bed of fire, they temporarily go into a trance and come out without any injuries. Steady walking is a must. Such festivals improve people's concentration, determination and most importantly endurance under difficult situations.
Ref:
Author:K.N. Jayaraman
(Modified January, 2026)
