He was discovered by a Thiyya woman named Patikutti while she bathed in the sacred waters of Thiruvanchira. As she bathed, she heard the soft jingling of silver anklets, and to her astonishment, a boy, radiant like a golden peacock, appeared in her very hands.
Deeply moved by this divine manifestation, Patikutti carried the child to the revered Ayyankara temple, the abode of Kottiyur Siva.
Raised within this community, the boy, Muthappan, soon revealed his affinity for hunting.
He asked his mother for a bow and arrows, and with them ventured into the surrounding forests. In defiance of Namboothiri customs, he dined freely with those from oppressed castes.
Troubled by his actions, his parents pleaded with him to abandon such habits, but Muthappan stood firm in his ways.
His hunting expeditions and the game he brought back to the temple disturbed the deity residing there. The aroma of meat in the sacred precincts unsettled the sanctity of the space, prompting the god himself to complain to Patikutti, saying that her son’s actions had driven him away from the temple.
What followed was a sight unlike any other. Muthappan, the hunter, turned his fiery gaze to the east and west, distant hills crumbled into dust. With a glance to the north and south, groves were reduced to ash. Advancing toward the temple, fire leapt from his eyes, a miraculous display that left all who witnessed it in awe.
Shaken by these events, Patikutti, once full of devotion to her son, cast him away. She exiled him to the high mountains, where a curse befell him, blinding his sight. Clad in a black loincloth, with a long knife at his side and flanked by his faithful black hunting dogs, Muthappan set off alone into the wilderness.