The ‘Maha Kumbhabhishekam’ began at the Sri Mallikarjuna Swamy Devasthanam temple in Srisailam on Friday.
The Mallikarjuna Swamy shrine is one of the 12 jyotirlingas and the shrine of Sri Bhramaramba Devi, among the 18 Shakti Peethams in India. The six-day event is meant to be a consecration ceremony, after the repair and renovation of the various sub-shrines, besides taking up gold-plating of the Vimanam, the canopy atop the sanctum sanctorum.
Chariot donated
Rajya Sabha Member Vemireddy Prabhakar Reddy from Nellore donated a golden chariot to the temple for the occasion.
Accompanied by his wife Vemireddy Prashanti Reddy, who is also part of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) local advisory committee at New Delhi, he arrived at the temple in traditional attire and presented the chariot worth ₹11 crore.
The chariot measures 23.6 feet in height and is slightly shorter than the one at Tirumala, which is 32 feet tall. Incidentally, this is the single largest donation ever received by the Srisailam temple so far. The task was executed by artisans at Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu.
The deities of Mallikarjuna Swamy and Bhramaramba Devi were taken on a maiden sojourn on the chariot in a colourful procession around the temple, which was watched by the awestruck devotees, amid chants of ‘Om Namah Shivaya’.
