TIRUCHY: Thousands of devotees from across the country started arriving at the Srirangam Ranganathar Swamy temple several hours early on Sunday to witness Lord Namperumal crossing through the Paramapatha Vasal (Gates of Heaven) on Monday. As part of Vaikunta Ekadesi decorations, the Rajagopuram is adorned with a giant garland provided by local florists in Srirangam.
Widely considered as the Boologa Vaikuntam (Heaven on Earth) and first of the 108 Divya Desams, the Ranganathar temple in Srirangam is one of the most popular Vaishnava temples among devotees. Vaikunta Ekadasi is one of the most celebrated festivals in the temple.
The main ritual of the 21-day festival is the opening of Paramapatha Vasal, in which the processional deity, Lord Namperumal, will be passing through the Paramapatha Vasal. Several lakhs of devotee from across the country would be thronging to the temple to witness the event.
According to popular belief, those who pass through the doors would be delivered from their sins.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, as the last ritual of 'Pagal Pathu' Lord Namperumal was adorned in 'Mohini Alangaram' and gave darshan to devotees. Temple sources noted the crowd for the ritual was less compared to last year, perhaps because the following day would be the first working day of the week. Though the Paramapatha Vasal opening is to be held at 4.45 am on Monday, lakhs of devotees started arriving at the temple from Sunday evening and proceeded to stand in serpentine queues from one entrance to another.
"This is the 10th consecutive Vaikunta Ekadesi festival I am attending. To beat the lakhs of devotees in getting a front-row seat near the Paramapatha Vasal area to witness Lord Namperumal passing through Heaven's Gate, me and my children would arrive almost 12 hours ahead of the ritual." said V Kamala, a devotee from Tiruchy.
Several thousand police personnel have been deployed in and around the temple to handle the immense crowd. The Corporation had set up a special team to monitor arrangements and also deployed 200 sanitation workers on the sprawling temple premises.
The Health department has deployed teams to monitor quality of drinking water and medical arrangements.
Apart from decorations, to allow devotees to witness the Paramapatha Vasal opening, the temple management has placed several LED displays across the temple for live relay of the event.