Vijayawada: Dasara celebrations conclude today
Priests performing Pancha Haratulu at atop Indrakeeladri Sri Durgamalleswara Swamy Vari Devasthanam in Vijayawada on Sunday (Photo Ch Venkata Mastan)
Vijayawada: The ongoing Dasara festivities atop Indrakeeladri concluded on Monday. On 9th day the presiding deity Goddess Sri Kanaka Durga will bless the devotees in two alankarams.
On the occasion of Sudda Navami the goddess will be adorned as Sri Mahishasura Mardini Avatharam and the timings of this avataram will be from 4 am to 12 noon.
After that from 1 pm to 11 pm, the goddess will appear in Sri Raja Rajeswari Devi alankaram. The Dasami (Vijaya Dasami) timings will begin from afternoon on Monday. Hence, the goddess is adorned as Sri Raja Rajeswari Devi on the same day.
Meanwhile, the notable Teppostavam of the Sri Kanaka Durga Devi and consort Sri Malleswara Swamy will also be performed at 6 pm on Monday in Krishna River at Sri Kanaka Durga ghat.
The authorities concerned made special arrangements to perform the Hamsa Vahana Teppotsavam. During the annual celestial Teppotsavam Sri Durga Malleswara Swamy will ride on a specially designed boat three times in the Krishna river.
During Dasara celebrations around 7 lakh devotees visited the temple so far from October 15 to 21 (8 days). As many as 98,972 devotees had the Goddess Sri Kanaka Durga Darshan on 1st day, 72,448 devotees on 2nd day, 72,027 on 3rd day, 86,770 on 4th, 88,669 on 5th day, 1,48,780 on 6th day (Moola Nakshatram), 70,000 on 7th day and over 90,000 devotees visited the temple on 8th day.
Likewise, another two to three lakh devotees are expected to visit the temple on Vijaya Dasami and after another two days. Meanwhile, for the past 8 days the temple authorities sold over 7 lakh prasadam tickets. They sold around 15,357 tickets of Rs 500 darshan, 11,588 tickets of Rs 300 darshan, 22428 tickets of Rs 100 darshan and as many as 16716 Kesakandana tickets.
On 8th day the presiding deity appeared as Sri Durga Devi on Sunday. Many devotees across the Telugu states and other neighbouring states visited the temple. Due to the rush of the devotees and huge queue lines many pilgrims preferred to have darshan by buying Rs 500 tickets.
In this view, Rs 500 ticket queue lines jam-packed which led the devotees to wait over 2 hours to have darshan. Some of the devotees who brought the Rs 500 tickets complained against the police personnel for allowing other persons citing VIPs instead of the ticket holders.