Millions of devotees in Kerala and outside will on Tuesday experience the bliss of beholding the Makara Jyoti at the State’s mountainous pilgrimage centre Sabarimala famous for its Lord Ayyappa shrine. Thousands of pilgrims have already set up camps near the shrine and at adjoining places for directly sighting the Jyoti, occurring on Tuesday evening.
Heavy inflow of devotees was continuing to the Sabarimala shrine even late Monday evening to be at Sannidhanam, the abode of Lord Ayyappa, on the day of the ultimate event of the 66-day annual pilgrimage season. Pilgrims had to stand in queue for up to 12 hours to cover the 4.5-km trek to Sannidhanam from Pampa, the base camp for the mountainous pilgrimage centre.
The special Makara Samkrama Puja, the most important and auspicious event of the two-phase pilgrimage that had started mid-November, will be held at the sanctum sanctorum of the temple at 1.14 pm Tuesday. The preparations for the special puja were completed at the Sannidhanam under the priests on Monday itself.
At 6.25 pm Tuesday, the special Deeparadhana (worship by lights) will be held at the temple for which the idol of Lord Ayyappa will be decked in the Thiruvabharanam (holy ornaments) brought from the deity’s ancestral palace Valiya Koyikkal in Pandalam. As per the legend, Lord Ayyappa was the foster son of the Raja of Pandalam.
The Deeparadhana will be followed by the sighting of the Makara Jyoti, the holy flame that would flicker in the horizon at Ponnambalamedu, a summit several kilometres away from the shrine. Police officials said every possible step had been taken to ensure smooth and incident-free conduct of the Makara Jyoti Darshan.
Travancore Devaswom Board, the body in charge of the administration of the shrine, said the temple was witnessing unprecedented rush of devotees since the shrine opened for Makara Vilakku, the second phase of the pilgrimage on December 30. The first phase, Mandalam, had witnessed a 30 per cent increase in pilgrim inflow compared to the previous year.
Additional Director General of Police A Hemachandran, who is in charge of the security at Sabarimala, said that tight security arrangements had been put in place at all locations in Sabarimala, especially at Sannidhanam, Pampa and the trek between the two points. However, these measures would not hamper the smooth flow of pilgrims, he said.
Strict instructions had been issued to police personnel by the higher authorities for dealing calmly with the devotees during crowd-control exercises in the context of the several incidents of the police, baffled by the heavy rush of pilgrims, manhandling them at Sabarimala. It had even been alleged that the police excesses could be part of a scheme to disrupt smooth pilgrimage.
As many as 1,250 police personnel have been deployed in Pullumedu, a high-altitude meadow en route to Sabarimala where 102 devotees had died on the night of January 14, 2011 in a stampede while returning after Makara Jyoti Darshan. The police personnel were deployed after dividing Pullumedu into different security zones. -dailypioneer
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