Tirupati:
The nine day annual ‘Brahmotsavam’ festival at the hill shrine of Lord Venkateswara at nearby Tirumala will get underway on September 30, a senior TTD official said here on Saturday.
The festival would begin with the hoisting of the ‘Garuda’ flag by the high priests, amid chanting of vedic hymns, atop the sacred golden flag mast (Dwajasthambham) at the hill temple, Talari Ravi, Public Relations Officer of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, which runs the temple, said.
He said Chief Minister Y S Jaganmohan Reddy would arrive here that day and make an offering of a set of new silk cloths on behalf of the state government.
Surveillance cameras have been deployed on all routes leading to the shrine and other areas where pilgrims congregate, besides deployment of thousands of police and TTD security personnel, he said.
A large number of electrically illuminated huge cut-outs of Hindu deities were being erected on the hills as an added attraction for visiting devotees, he said.
Three replica statues of Lord Athi Varadar in three different postures, made of plaster of Paris RPT made of plaster of paris, were also being installed at a huge marriage hall complex for the benefit of devotees, Ravi said,
The once in 40 years event at the Sri Devarajaswamy temple at Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu where the fig wood idol of the Lord is taken out of the temple tank and kept for view for devotees, began on July 1.
It ended on August 18 with the immersion of the idol in the temple tank.
Lakhs of devotees had thronged the temple town to have a darshan of the deity.
Ravi said that the Brahmotsavams main event, the ‘Garudaseva’ procession, that is expected to attract about three lakh devotees, would take place on the fifth day of the festival on October 4.
