As part of its efforts to propagate the glory of Lord Venkateswara, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) has resolved to print ‘Sri Venkateswara Nama Koti’ books and make them available for the devotees.
The intention is to encourage the devotees pen the divine mantra, ‘Om Namo Venkatesaya’, for one crore times.
Each book consists of 200 pages, and the devotees will be able to write the mantra for 132 times on a single page.
On completion of the task, the books will be preserved underneath a ‘stupam’ to be built at a place to be identified later as the process of writing the name for one crore times will take a couple of years.
Free darshan
The TTD has also decided to extend free darshan of the deity to all those completing the task.
Initially, the TTD thought of printing about 15,000 books, at the rate of 1,000 copies for each district, and distribute them free of cost among the interested devotees through the programme assistants of the All Hindu Dharma Prachara Projects (AHDPP).
The authorities later embarked on a rethink when the estimates revealed that the TTD would have to spend ₹22,740 on each devotee towards the cost of 379 books at the rate of ₹60 each to enable the devotee complete the task.
The TTD is already left with a huge stockpile of various publications owing to poor response from the devotees.
Fearing a similar situation should it go ahead and print the Nama Koti books, it decided to sell the books at cost price.
After discussing the issue at length, the TTD has finally resolved to print a limited number of books and sell them at its publications stalls both in Tirumala and Tirupati on an experimental basis without any profit motive so as to have a first-hand information on the response of the devotees.
