Devotees in good numbers thronged temples, mostly dedicated to Lord Vishnu and his incarnations, to offer special prayers on the occasion of the auspicious Vaikunta Ekadasi on Friday.
Priests performed special pujas for the presiding deities at various temples. The devotees from far and wide had a darshan of the presiding deities of the historic temples such as Panakala Narasimha Swamy temple at Mangalagiri, Srikakula Andhra Maha Vishnu temple at Srikakulam village in Krishna district and Venugopala Swamy temple at Nemali.The managements of the temples made arrangements for safe darshan of the deities.
Amid concerns over the new strain, social-distancing guidelines maintained strictly.
The devotees, who turned up in large numbers braving the cold weather conditions to witness the grand religious event, chanted slogans of Govida at temples like Labbipeta Venkateswara Swamy temple here.
Richly decorated
The richly decorated northern entrance of the temple was thrown open for the sacred ‘Uttara dwara darshanam’ or Vaikunta dwaram darshan. A host of special rituals signifying the importance of the sacred event — ‘Uttara Dwara Darshanam’ were performed. The devotees had a darshan of Lord through the northern entrance, which is opened only once in a year amid spiritual ambience replete with Vedic hymns in praise of the deity by the temple priests before the break of the dawn.
At Sri Panchamukha Veeranjaneya Swamy temple at Tadepalli near here, Vishnu sahasranama parayana etc were recited.
Every year approximately 75,000-1,00,000 devotees from all over the State used to visit Sri Panakala Lakshmi Narasimha Swami temple on Vaikunta Ekadasi. The footfall this year was slightly less compared to previous years.
