Amidst chanting of ‘Govinda… Govinda…’ by thousands of devotees from various parts of Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Kerala who were present braving the intermittent drizzle, the ‘maha samprokshanam’ of the ancient Sri Aathikesava Perumal Temple at Thiruvattar was performed after 418 years on Wednesday morning.
As the State Government decided to perform rituals in 1,500 temples across Tamil Nadu in five years, Rs. 7 crore was allotted for renovating Sri Aathikesava Perumal Temple while the devotees contributed Rs. 3 crore for the work.
Following the ‘yaaga salai puja’ that started from June 29 with ‘Ganapathi homam’, the special rituals were performed since 3.30 a.m. on Wednesday.
The abhishekam for all seven ‘kumbams’ atop the shrine was performed shortly after 6 a.m. and the holy water sprinkled on the devotees, who were given ‘prasadam’ after the ‘samprokshanam’. The devotees were allowed to enter the temple after ‘deepaaraadhanai’ was performed in the sanctum sanctorum.
As devotees had started coming to the temple since Tuesday night, police had a tough time regulating the crowd. As a local holiday had been declared, special buses were operated to Thiruvattar from various parts of the district to enable the devotees to reach the shrine.
Led by Superintendent of Police, Kanniyakumari, Hari Kiran Prasad, SP, Tirunelveli, P. Saravanan and SP, Tenkasi, R. Krishnaraj, over 1,200 police personnel were deployed to regulate the crowd.
TN Ministers T. Mano Thangaraj and P.K. Sekar Babu, MP Vijay Vasanth, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Commissioner J. Kumaragurubaran, District Collector M. Aravind, Sub-Collector, Padmanabhapuram, Alarmelmangai, MLA N. Thalavai Sundaram, former Union Minister Pon. Radhakrishnan, former MLA Austin and others participated in the ‘samprokshanam’.
