Getting initiated into the world of letters

Vidyarambham is a ceremony in Kerala, South India, where children between the age of two and three are ritually initiated into the world of learning.

As part of the Vidyarambham ceremony, three letters that symbolize the name of God are written on the tongue of the child with a golden ring. The child is also made to form letters in a plate of rice with the help of elders.

The Vidyarambham festival is conducted on the last day (vijayadasami day) of the ten-day Navarathri (Navaratri) festival and is done by invoking the blessings of Goddess Saraswathi, who is the Goddess of Learning as per Hindu belief.

In Kerala, Vidyarambham ceremony on a mass scale can be witnessed at Thunchanparambu, the birth place of the great Malayalam poet Thunchath Ramanujan Ezhuthachan.