: Incidents involving the fall of idols from various temple towers are causing concern among the devotees.
While the ‘free fall’ of idols from various towers in the Srikalahastheeswara temple over the last few months, though brushed aside as sporadic instances, continues unabated, a similar incident witnessed in the Pallikondeswara Swamy temple in Surutupalle village of Nagalapuram mandal triggered further panic. The latest incident was attributed to heavy rains and lightning that struck the tower last night.
The year 2010 is unforgettable in the history of Srikalahasti, as the Raja Gopuram built on the banks of Swarnamukhi river by the Vijayanagara emperor Sri Krishna Devaraya crashed, triggering alarm among the devout across the world.
According to temple accounts, devotees from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, who form a huge percentage of visitors here, stopped visiting the temple for the next two months, either assuming that the temple itself had crashed or treating it as ‘bad omen’. Even as the incident started fading from people’s memory and the tower is being re-built now, there is palpable apprehension over the frequent fall of idols from other gopurams.
Even three days back, a huge portion of an idol crashed from the ‘Bikshala Gopuram’ in Srikalahasti, which could have resulted in casualty had there been devotees standing under it. It was in 2000 that Kumbhabhishekam was performed at the shrine after taking up repair works to the cement mortar structure. Maintenance issues cropping up within 16 years raises questions on the quality of work.
“Tenders have been called for taking up repairs to the four gopurams abutting the temple,” Sri Kalahastheeswara Devasthanam Trust Board chairman Pothugunta Guravaiah Naidu told The Hindu .
