Fervour marked the annual Pushpa Yagam festival at the temple of Lord Venkateswara on Thursday.
About 14 varieties of flowers and six types of leaves weighing eight tonnes were used in the rituals performed at the hill shrine in the afternoon. The ankurarpanam ritual was performed the previous night.
The processional deity of Lord Malayappa, flanked by his two consorts, was seated atop a high altar as the priests ceremoniously rendered floral ‘aahutis’ to the recitation of holy texts by a battery of Vedic pundits.
Each time, the floral ‘aahutis’ formed into a mound and touched the chin of the deities and the priests cleared them and repeated the ritual for seven times.
Earlier in the day, special pooja was also performed to the flowers at the TTD garden office, from where they were carried in a procession to the Lord Venkateswara temple in hundreds of bamboo baskets and handed over to the priests.
Devotees from Tamil Nadu contributed four tonnes of flowers, while three tonnes more were received from Karnataka and the rest from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the TTD officials said.
