Hyderabad: Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple in Yadadri will be the first holy place in Telangana to allow devotees do ‘Giri Pradakshina’, a practice of circumambulating a sacred hill every day, covering two and a half kilometer distance from June 18.
The temple, which is popularly known as Yadagirigutta, is 60 kms from the city. After Arunachalam temple in Tamil Nadu and Simhachalam at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Yadadri Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple is facilitating devotees to carry out ‘Giri Pradakshina’ from June 18. A special programme is being organized on June 18 to mark the commencement of ‘Giri Pradakshina,’ confirmed Temple Executive Officer A. Bhaskar Rao.
The facility will offer an opportunity for devotion and spiritual growth. “The Yadadri temple will be the first temple in Telangana to introduce ‘Giri Pradakshina’ and to enable more people know about it, we are organizing a religious programme on June 18 with over 4,000 devotees involving temple staff, shopkeepers, local villagers and devotees,” he explained.
Of the 12,000 and more temples under the purview of the Endowments department in the State, Yadadri is the only religious place where ‘Giri Pradakshina’ will start from June 18.
The temple management has also taken a decision to allow local villagers to have (antarayala) special darshan of Lord Sri Narasimha Swamy from sanctum sanctorum on every Tuesday from 8.30 am to 9 am while one more darshan facility on every Saturday from 8.30 to 9 am.
With this, the management fulfilled the long-pending demand of local villagers to have special darshan for them. The decision was taken with the consent of local Congress MLA Beerla Ilaiah after a meeting with him along with other officials concerned.
Dress code mandatory from June 15
From June 15, the management made the dress code mandatory for all devotees participating in arjitha sevas at the temple. “We have already started implementing a dress code – traditional sari or ‘salwar kameez’ for women and ‘dhoti’ and ‘kurtha’ preferably white for men from June 1 on an experimental basis. As the response was excellent, we have decided to make it mandatory from June 15,” another official said.
According to officials, every day not less than 5,000 to 8,000 pilgrims on average visits this temple to offer their vows, performing ‘saswata pujas’, ‘saswata kalyanam’, ‘laksha tulasi pujas’, ‘abhishekam’, ‘satyanarayana swamy vratham’ etc. During weekends and public holidays, the turnout would cross 50,000.
