Frequently asked questions

Irumudi is a companion app for people observing the Ayyappa Swamy Deeksha. It brings a day tracker, reminders, 22 Saranam texts in four scripts, a Puja Vidhanam guide in six languages, a Sabarimala trip planner, listening, Pradakshana and Annadanam listings into one place.

Yes. 41 days is the traditional length and the app’s default. You can enter a different number of days, from 1 to 365, when you set up, and change it later from the menu under Journey. You enter your real start date and the app shows the current day of your Deeksha, and a pencil beside “Started” on the Your Deeksha page changes the date. If you start the app part-way through, it works out the day from your start date and does not invent check-ins for days before you installed it.

The whole app is available in English, Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi. You choose when you first open it and can change it later from the menu. The Puja Vidhanam guide and the 18 Swami names are in all six languages.

Each Saranam text is written out in Telugu, English letters, Malayalam and Tamil as four separate versions, and the English is a transliteration, not a translation. The Saranam texts are not written out in Kannada or Hindi script.

The wording of the app in Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi is still to be reviewed by a native reader, so some phrases may change in later updates.

They can. There is a morning and an evening reminder, each set 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes before sunrise or sunset (an hour by default), or at a fixed time you choose. Sun times are worked out on your phone from a place you share once, and until then the reminders use 5:00 AM and 5:00 PM. You can also choose how often a reminder repeats, a sound of your own, and a snooze is kept even if the app is closed.

If you set a trip date on the Sabarimala tab, the app can also ring at 8:00 am a week before, the day before and on the day, when Reminders are on. The phone asks for notification permission only when you turn a reminder on, and reminders stop by themselves after your last day.

Yes. The Sabarimala tab lets you set a trip date, with a countdown and the day of your Deeksha the trip falls on, choose a route and add your stops. It has an irumudi checklist and a packing checklist that you can tick and edit, a link to the official booking site, Travel cards for the nearest station, bus station and airport, and Explore cards for well-known places nearby.

The guides and checklists were written for the app and are provisional, so please check them with your own Guru Swami. A season timeline is shown as expected dates only, until you enter the dates from the Devaswom Board, and forest paths open and close with the season, so confirm before you travel. Distances are straight lines, worked out on your phone.

A full puja guide, supplied by the owner of the app, in Telugu, English, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi. It opens from a card on Home, you read it page by page and can zoom, and a download button sends the PDF to your phone’s share menu. It is inside the app, so it works with no connection.

A person who knows the puja has not yet reviewed each language, so please check it with your Guru Swami.

A Swami is called by a name that depends on how many times the Deeksha has been taken: Kanne Swami for the first time, Katti Swami for the second, and so on up to Narikela Swami for the eighteenth. The app shows all 18 with a picture and the name in your language and in English.

Some names, and their order, differ between Guru Swami traditions. For example, some call the fifth name Peru Swami. This is not an official list followed the same way in every region, so please confirm it with your own Guru Swami.

A simple stopwatch with pause and a round counter for your walk around the temple. It does not use GPS or any sensor. The time and rounds are saved on your phone as you go, and you can look back at your past walks or turn one into a picture to share.

Yes. “Day N of T” becomes a picture card. Day 1 has a picture of its own, and the days after it go through a set of Ayyappa pictures. You can choose another picture, or use your own photo from the gallery or camera and drag and zoom it to fit. Share it to any app or save it to your gallery.

Your photo is not uploaded anywhere. The app only hands the finished picture to the app you choose.

No. There are no devotee accounts. Your journey, check-ins, checklist, favourites, bookmarks, trip plan and counter are kept on your phone.

Yes. The tracker, check-ins, checklist, counter and trip plan are stored on your phone and do not need a connection, and neither do the Saranam texts or the Puja Vidhanam guide.

• Downloading song details, Annadanam listings, Padi Pooja dates, announcements and offers for the first time, and getting later updates.
• Playing a YouTube video.
• The weather for the week, after you tap “Get weather”.
• Opening directions in your maps app, and asking whether a newer version of the app exists.

The 22 Saranam texts and the Puja Vidhanam guide are inside the app and need no connection. Listings and dates that the app has already downloaded stay available offline. Listings may be out of date when you are offline, so check them before travelling.

Only if you ask. Sunrise and sunset are worked out on your phone from a place you saved. The weather for the week appears only after you tap “Get weather” on a card that names Open-Meteo.com. Then a place, rounded to about a kilometre, is sent to that service, with no account and no device number. “Turn off weather” stops it, and the app never asks for it on its own.

Some songs play through YouTube’s own embedded player inside the app. It keeps YouTube’s standard controls and advertising and needs an internet connection. While you look around the app a playing video can float in a small card, and it stops when you leave the app or lock the screen. YouTube is never played in the background.

If a video is removed, made private, or its owner does not allow it to play in other apps, the app says so and offers a link to open it in YouTube instead.

For audio that its rights holder has cleared, yes. It keeps playing when you leave the song, with a small player above the tabs, and it can play in the background with controls on the lock screen. This is only for cleared audio, never for YouTube.

No. Irumudi never downloads, saves or extracts audio or video from YouTube. Only audio that the rights holder has separately cleared for download can be saved on your phone, and each song shows where it comes from.

Recording is not in the current version; it is planned for a later version. When it is available, a recording is your voice only. It does not contain the backing music, and it stays on your phone unless you choose to share or upload it.

Not in the current version. A backup of your Deeksha data to your own Google Drive is planned for a later version and is not part of this one. When it is available it will work only after you connect your own Google account, it will keep its copy in a folder in your Drive, and it will never replace what is on your phone without asking you first.

There is no advertising network and no tracking. Home can show a row of offers from shops, and the Alerts page shows announcements. Both are published by the Irumudi team itself, and they appear only when there are some. An offer can be limited to a distance from the shop, and your phone checks that against the place you chose, so the place is never sent to us.

Each listing records its source and the date it was last verified, and a reviewer marks it verified before it is published. If someone shared the listing through the website, we also phone them to check the details first. A listing that has not been checked for 90 days is shown with a note that its details may have changed.

Even so, hours and meals can change without notice. Please confirm before you travel.

Use the Share a listing page on this website. Say whether it is an Annadanam or a Padi Pooja, then give the name, address, dates, times and meals, and your name and mobile number. You do not need an account.

It does not appear in the app straight away. We phone you within 5 to 6 hours to check the details, and we publish what is true. If it is happening today, choose today’s date and we will see it first.

It is used only to phone you and check the listing. Only administrators can see it, it is never shown in the app, and we do not send text messages, WhatsApp messages or email about it. A closed submission is deleted once it is more than 30 days old.

Write to us from the Support page and say which text, song or listing is wrong and what it should say. If you can, include the source.

Use the Support page. It has a category for privacy requests and one for technical problems.

Open the menu and, under Manage, choose Your data. Export my data saves your journeys, check-ins, checklist, favourites, bookmarks, Pradakshana walks, Saranam counts and trip plan to a file. Recordings are not included in that file. You can bring the file back with Import from a file.

Your data lives on your phone, not in an account with us. Removing the app can delete it, so export first if you want to keep it.