Durga appears in Gayatri Devi avatar on second day of Dasara festival

VIJAYAWADA: Goddess Durga Devi appeared in Gayatri avatar, considered the Veda mata, on the second day of the Dasara Navaratri celebrations at the Durga temple on the hilltop Indrakeeladri hill on Monday.

Deputy chief minister and endowment minister Kottu Satyanarayana and others visited the temple. He inspected the arrangements and asked officials to provide the best services with high devotion to the devotees.

There was a decline in the number of devotees on Monday, compared to the first day of the Dasara Sarannavaratri festivities at the Sri Durga Malleswara Swamy Varla Devasthanam atop Indrakeeladri here.

As a result, devotees could take the darshan of Goddess Kanaka Durga Devi within an hour.

The priests said Gayatri Devi is the goddess that often sits on a red lotus flower and appears with five heads and five pairs of hands representing the incarnations of the goddess as Parvati and Saraswati.

On the second day of the festivities, around 40,000 devotees visited the Sri Durga Malleswara Swamy Devasthanam. Pilgrims across from the Telugu states reached the city and worshipped the presiding deity, Goddess Sri Kanaka Durga, after going through the queue lines set up at the Sri Vinayaka Temple near VMC.

Police Commissioner KR Tata inspected the arrangements and the devotee's facilities atop Indrakeeladri along with AIG Ravindranath Babu, DCPs Vishal Gunni and Ajitha Vejendla, ACP Hanumantha Rao and others. Many devotees and the endowment department complained that the police impeded the duties of the endowment officials.

Meanwhile, NTR District collector Dilli Rao along with VMC commissioner Swapnil Pundkar and sub collector Aditi Singh inspected the arrangement and asked the EO, KS Rama Rao and others to ensure hassle-free darshan to the devotees and give priority to those who come through the queue lines.

TTD trust board members, Seshu Babu and Venkata Subbaraju, offered silk robes to Goddess Kanaka Durga. After presenting the robes, both members took darshan of Durga Devi.

Vedic Scholars of the Durga temple welcomed the board members as per the temple's traditions. Later, the two told the media that the Durga temple authorities provided all the necessary facilities for the devotees to have darshan. They said, “We worshipped Goddess Durga Devi for the welfare of the people.”

Chairman of the Kanaka Durga Temple Trust Board, Karnati Rambabu, and others accompanied them.