The Swarna Bharathi Indoor Stadium here reverberated with the chants ‘Govinda’, ‘Govinda’ by thousands of devotees as priests performed various ‘arjitha sevas’ to Lord Venkateswara as the week-long ‘Sri Venkateswara Vaibhavotsavams’ got off to a colourful start on Wednesday.
The programme is being jointly organised by the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams (TTD) and the Hindu Dharma Prachara Parishat of Tirupathi.
The TTD has provided the unique opportunity to devotees to participate in the ‘arjitha sevas’ to Lord at the replica temple set up on stage in the indoor stadium. These ‘sevas’ are normally out of reach for ordinary devotees at Tirumala due to limited availability and as the ‘sevas’ are booked months or even years in advance.
Couples were given an opportunity to register their names for participation in the ‘arjitha sevas’ to be held during the week-long programme, which will conclude on July 29. There is, however, no restriction on other devotees who wish to have a ‘darshan’ of the deity or witness the ‘sevas’.
The day started with ‘Suprabhatam’ -- the awakening ‘seva’ at 6 a.m. where Lord Venkateswara is made to wake up in the morning by reciting 70 ‘slokas’ penned by Partivadi Bhyankara Annan.
Thomala SevaThis was followed by ‘Thomala Seva’ where in the Lord was adorned with beautiful garlands of flowers by 6.30 a.m. and this ritual is followed by ‘Koluvu’ where the temple priests rendered the day’s duty chart before the Lord by 7.30 a.m. Later, the priests praised the Lord chanting His 1000 names in ‘Archana seva’ that took place between 7.30 a.m. to 8.15 a.m.
Later, the special ‘arjitha seva’ of Sahasra Kalasabhishekam was performed between 8.30am to 10 a.m. where in the processional deities and Sri Visvaksena -- the chief commander of Lord were rendered ‘abhishekam’ with 1008 ‘Kalasas’ of sacred water.
Brahmasri Chaganti Koteswara Rao disclosed that the 1008 ‘kalasams’, used in the ‘seva’, costing Rs.17 lakh, were donated by an anonymous Muslim devotee.
Thousands of devotees had a ‘darshan’ as they were allowed for ‘Sarvadarshanam’ from 10.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.
In the evening between 5.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. ‘Sahasra Deepalankara Seva’ was performed where the devotees looked upon the Lord in the light of 1000 ghee-lit lamps.
TTD JEO P. Bhaskar, Special Grade Deputy EO Chenchulakshmi, HDPP Special Officer Sriram Raghunath, EE Srihari, PRO T. Ravi and Special Officer Utsava Committee Surendra Reddy were also present.