Works on establishing ‘Parivara yaga salas’ ahead of the ‘kumbabhishekam’ of Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple here on January 20 are going on in full swing.
Even as the Madurai Bench of the High Court reserved its orders on Tuesday on two public interest litigation (PIL) petitions seeking a direction to forbear Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment (HR and CE) Department from performing the consecration on January 20 or any other date without repairing the mutilated idols, the temple authorities were busy building yagasalas for performing108 ‘yaga gundams’ and ‘kaala pujas’.
‘Parivara yaga salas’ for 47 ‘vediyal gundams’ and ‘paradana yagasalas’ for 61 other ‘yaga gundams’ would be ready by January 10, S. Selvaraj, Joint Commissioner of the temple, said.
“We are going ahead with the works as the court has not passed any interim order in the case,” he said.
The ‘parivara yagasalas’ were being given final touches and the work on ‘paradana yagasalas’ would be taken up within a couple of days, K. Mayilvahanan, Assistant Divisional Engineer of the temple, told The Hindu on Thursday.
He said that the rituals for the ‘kumbabhishekam’, to be performed after a gap of 14 years, would commence with ‘Vinayagar puja’ on January 15, and ‘kaala pujas’ would begin the next day.
After the completion of ‘kaala pujas’ on January 19, the consecration would commence in the morning of January 20, he said.
K. Ramamurthy, district secretary of Hindu Munnani and one of the petitioners in the case, said that the HR and CE Department’s decision to conduct the consecration of the temple along with that of 240 temples on January 20 went against ‘Agama’ rules as each temple had separate ‘Agama’ rules and ‘Sthala Puranas.’
