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Tracing history to find out the first ever time that Onam festival was celebrated, takes you to the second century. Researcher AM Kurup, in his paper The Sociology of Onam, refers to Madura Kanji, a Tamil ballad from Sangam literature, describing Onam as being celebrated in Madurai ‘in the bright fortnight of the month of Sravana or Chingam’. Kerala historian MG Sasibhooshan too says that there's proof that the festival was celebrated in Madurai and Tirupati many centuries ago. Interestingly, these cities are not in present day Kerala, the land that is believed to have been ruled by Mahabali, a righteous king about whom the Onam festival has become all about.
It is not easy to put a time period to Mahabali’s mythical reign. According to folklore, he ruled even before Parasurama is said to have founded Kerala, throwing his axe into the sea and creating land out of it – another story passed down generations. History blogger Maddy writes, "There was no Kerala before Pasarurama came and created it. So how come Mahabali ruled it?"
Maddy took a trip to places like Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu and Tulu Nadu in Karnataka to find the origins of Mahabali, but concludes rather fondly that the king had always belonged to Kerala.
In short, the legend of Mahabali that’s been followed in recent decades – or perhaps a few centuries – is of a very just king who had once ruled Kerala and let all his subjects live as one. So says this ballad that is sung for every Onam.
Maveli naadu vaneedum kaalam / Manushyar ellaarum onnu pole
The story goes that when the ruler became all powerful, even the devas were worried and asked Lord Vishnu to put an end to his supremacy. Vishnu took on the avatar of Vamana, a dwarf, and went before the benevolent king, requesting three paces of land. The king who never said ‘no’ to a request agreed. Vamana then grew in size and covered the earth and the sky in the first two steps and waited for Mahabali to offer his head to place the third step. The king was then pushed to the nether land but with a boon that he could come back every year to visit the people he had once ruled.
“But it was not always celebrated as a festival of Mahabali. Onam was once a religious festival and celebrated as a festival of Vamana,” claims Sasibhooshan. However this is a controversial claim, also purported a few years ago by right wing leaders. When BJP leader Amit Shah once wished Happy Vamana Jayanti during Onam, many Malayalis had objected to it.
In his book Athazhapashnikarundo, Sashibhooshan cites an argument by another historian MGS Narayanan about Onam resulting from conflicts between the upper caste Brahmins and the lower caste farmers. He refers to the records of ‘Moozhikulam Kacha’ during the reign of Indukotha Varma, who ruled Kerala in the 10th century. MGS argues that the records suggest a law protecting the Brahmins and as a protest against this system, there began a celebration of Mahabali along with Vamana. Through the years, it became a festival of the farmers and Onam became a celebration of Mahabali.
Sashibooshan writes that it has been centuries since Onam, which had once been a religious festival, became one beyond religion. It has also come to be known as a harvest festival, when paddy gets harvested during the same month of ‘Chingam’, the first in the Malayalam calendar.
Late academician and journalist NV Krishna Warrier tried to find connections between the Sumerian New Year festival and Onam. In the BC period, New Year was celebrated by Sumerians in Babylonia during the time of Chingam in Kerala. Warrier also found similar themes but Sashibhooshan writes that these are not conclusive in any way.
A more factual reference is made by MGS in his book Perumals of Kerala. He mentions the inscription on Thiruvatruvay (in Thiruvalla) copper plate as having the earliest reference to Onam. This is from the year 861 AD when Kerala was ruled by Sthanu Ravi Varma alias Kulasekhara, a Chera Perumal.
Copper plates from the ninth century during Sthanu Ravi Kulasekhara's reign
In the same century, Tamil thinker Periyazzhawar described offerings made to Lord Vishnu during Onam in the ‘Pathikas and Pallads’, writes AM Kurup. It also described ‘the feast, the dress, the songs and dances of men and women’.
Kurup also mentions inscriptions of the Malayalam era that indicates that people sent oblations and presents to temples for Onam. This includes inscriptions of donations made by one Chendan Changaran and another Chennan Kesavan for 'Avani Onam'.
The reason that such rituals as pookkalam and the grand Onam sadhya came into the picture, Sashibooshan gathers, is that those were the only rare occasions when farmers could be happy. It was a crisis management situation during the rest of the year.
Sasibhooshan’s book also refers to Scottish physician Dr Francis Buchanan’s observation that people sold pepper at a small price for Onam celebrations in Chingam and spent money on gaudy things and alcohol.
Bartolommeo, a missionary who visited Malabar in 1776 and wrote A Voyage to the East Indies, mentions how Onam was celebrated in the 16th century.
The fourth grand festival, celebrated in Malayala, is called Onam, and happens always in the month of September, on the day of new moon (not always). About the 10th September the rain ceases in Malabar. All nature seems as if regenerated: the flowers again shoot up, and the trees bloom, in a word, this season is the same as that which Europeans call spring. This festival seems, therefore, to have been instituted for the purpose of soliciting from the Gods a happy and fruitful year.
He further writes about people adorning their houses with flowers and daubing them with cow dung, putting on new clothes and replacing old earthenware. Bartolommeo also writes about men forming into two parties and shooting each other with arrows. A practice that Sashibhooshan also refers to. “In Kandiyoor, in central Kerala, there were ‘samarolsavangal’ when men fought each other with arms and there would even be deaths. What we see today is a lighter version of that practice called Ona Thallu,” he says.
“Onam has been celebrated differently in different parts of Kerala. In Thrikkakara, it is believed to have been celebrated for 28 days starting from the Thiruvonam day of the Malayalam month of Chingam to the Thiruvonam of the next month Kanni,” says Sashibhooshan.
Everywhere, Onam feasts and presents were exchanged between the rich and the poor. Historian A Sreedhara Menon in his book Kerala Samskaram writes about a practice of ‘paatakar’ (tenants) presenting vegetables and banana bunches to zamindars (feudal lords) who would then give them new clothes called ‘Ona kodi’. This was of course before the zamindari system was abolished in the 1950s.
In 1961, the Kerala government decided to celebrate Onam as a ‘national festival’.