Vemulawada temple to remain open full day on Sundays

 Karimnagar: Given the heavy rush being witnessed for the past few days, the authorities of Sri Raja Rajeshwara Swamy temple decided to keep the shrine full-day open on Sundays from January 21 to February 18 for devotees to offer prayers at Vemulawada of Rajanna Sircilla district.

It is a ritual for many devotees to offer prayers to lord Shiva, the presiding deity of the Rajanna temple at Vemulawada and proceed to visit Asia’s biggest biennial tribal festival Sammakka and Sarakka Jatara to be held from February 21 to 24 in Medaram of Mulugu district. The devotees along with families reach Medaram one month in advance to avoid heavy rush during the four-day Jatara.

To avoid inconvenience to devotees, the authorities decided to keep the Vemulawada temple open all day and night on Sundays till February 18 to allow the devotees to follow the rituals, including ‘Kode Mokku’ (a ritual where the devotee makes circumambulations of the temple with an ox as an offering to the lord appealing Him to protect their families from adversaries and leaves it in the temple) and offering jaggery equivalent to the weight of their children, before going on the Medaram pilgrimage.

On Sunday, the Vemulawada temple witnessed a large number of devotees who had to wait in long queue lines for more than four hours to have the darshan of the presiding deity.