New system to pave way for better darshan at Tirumala temple

The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) has now turned its attention in providing a gratifying view of the main idol at the hill temple of Lord Venkateswara for the benefit of the visiting devotees. Even though the three -tier darshan system introduced at the hill temple last year has won it accolades from the pilgrim fraternity given its potentiality to clear heavy crowds complaints started trickling-in against the poor vision of the main idol as the devotees are allowed to have the darshan from the Jaya-Vijaya point i.e. from at a distance of minimum 70 feet.

At present the pilgrims are allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum from the silver gate (Vendi vakili) in three rows. While the devotees in the first row are made to walk on an elevated horizontal wooden pedestal the devotees in the second walk on an attenuated ascent and the third row of pilgrims walk at the floor level.

Even though the variation in the height of the wooden pedestals helped in clearing more crowds it nevertheless received complaints of poor vision of the deity.

In this back drop TTD Executive officer D. Sambasiva Rao decided to evenly raise the height of all the pedestals with a variation in their forward slopes so as to enable the pilgrims have a better vision of the deity right from the moment they embark on the high-rise wooden bases.

In an exclusive interview to The Hindu Dr. Rao said “determining the height of the pedestals is not an easy task. It is only after a trial of errors that we could reach at a meaningful conclusion.”

The entire experimentation was done scientifically based on the 'Line of Sight' theory. The calculations were based on the horizontal distance between the proposed point of darshan and the main idol, the average height of a person, his gradient visual percept and the vertical space available inside the sanctum sanctorum. There were objections by Agama pundits who argued that the height of the pedestals cannot exceed a particular limitDr. Rao said the present arrangements has resulted in the faster movement in the queue lines if the statistics stand any testimony.

Now pilgrims are allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum from Vendi vakili in three rows