The annual Pushpa yagam festival went off in a grand manner at the famous hill temple of Lord Venkateswara here on Saturday.
The rituals were performed at the Sampangi prakaram inside the temple. The processional deity of Lord Malayappa swamy along with his two divine consorts, was seated atop a golden altar while the priests ceremoniously conducted the floral festival.
In addition to the traditional flowers such as rose, sampangi, ganneri, mollalu, lillies and chamanti, conventional leaves like Tulasi, Bilwam, Maruvam and davanam were also used. In all, about nine tonnes of aromatic flowers of varied hues is estimated to have gone into the conduct of the yagam. The priests offered floral ‘Ahuitis’ to the deities as a battery of vedic scholars recited the extracts from sacred texts.
Each time the floral mound that was formed in course of offering of flowers touched the divine chin of the deities, they were ceremoniously cleared by the temple priests and the spiritual exercise was repeated until the festival reached its crescendo.
Earlier in the morning ‘Snapana Thirumanjanam’ was conducted to the deities.
According to the TTD Garden Superintendent Srinivas, the flowers were procured from various centres in the country under the Pushpa Kainkaryam scheme. While four tonnes of flowers were secured from Tamil Nadu, three tonnes were obtained from Karnataka and the rest two tonnes from the two Telugu speaking States.
The temple administration had dispensed with the performance of a few day-time rituals inside the temple.
