Thousands of devout Hindus, drawn from various parts of the country thronged the ‘Agnitheertham’ seashore in Rameswaram, Sethukarai and Devipattinam seashores in the district and paid obeisance to their ancestors on the occasion of ‘Aadi Amavasya’, one of the powerful new moon days on Wednesday.
After performing ‘tharpanam’ the rituals in the Agnitheertham Sea in front of the eastern entrance of the temple, large number of people – men, women and children took holy bath in the sea and paid their oblations praying for the souls of their ancestors to rest in peace and seek their blessings. The Agnitheertham sea was found withdrawn but it did not dampen the spirits.
They also took part in the ‘theerthavari’ festival at Agnitheertham sea at 11 30 a.m. when ‘amavasya’ began. Earlier, Lord Ram was brought in a procession in Golden chariot from the temple for the ‘theerthavari’ festival. Hindus also took holy bath in the Sethukarai sea in Thirupullani and offered worship at the Adi Jaganatha Perumal Temple there.
A section of Hindus performed the rituals on the Devipattinam seashore, near the Navapashanam sea temple, dedicated to Navagrahas, the nine planetary deities. After taking holy dip in the sea, they made offerings to the departed souls and conducted special pujas at the seashores. People also took holy bath in the sea at Mariyur near Sayalkudi.
Temple authorities at the Sri Ramanathaswamy temple made barricading facilities to regulate the crowd at Agni theertham sea and provided basic facilities such as drinking water and sanitation in coordination with local municipality. Collector K Veera Raghava Rao visited the seashore on Tuesday evening and inspected the arrangements.
Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police Rupesh Kumar Meena and Superintendent of Police Omprakash Meena also visited Rameswaram and inspected the security and traffic arrangements. About 800 police personnel were deployed for security, SP said. Two Additional SPs and five DSPs supervised the security and traffic arrangements. “The event went off well and no untoward incident was reported,” the SP said.
