TIRUCHI: Thousands of devotees offered worship at the Samayapuram Sri Mariamman temple on the occasion of mahakumabhishekam near here on Monday.
The mahakumbabhishekam commenced with a special puja at the yaga salai on February 1 and, on Monday the sixth kaala pujai ended at 5.45 a.m. The ‘gadams’ containing the holy waters were taken from the ‘yaga salai’ to the ‘vimanams’ of various shrines.
Amidst religious fervour, the holy waters were offered at about 7.10 a.m. marking the completion of the mahakumbabhishekam.
As part of the renovation, the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Department had expanded the area of the ‘prakaram’ of the temple and also constructed three ‘rajagopurams’ — on the west, south and north of the temple.
A new shrine for Sri Ganapathy had been constructed as part of the renovation. Holy waters were offered to the new shrine as well as the existing shrines of Sri Chellandiamman, Sri Mariamman and Sri Karuppannaswamy at the temple, besides the golden vimanam of the presiding deity.
The renovation of the temple had been executed at an expenditure of about ₹30 crore which included contributions by the donors. A slew of new facilities had been provided at the temple. The construction of the ‘mudi mandapam’, bus stand, ‘Ammavasai mandapam’ vehicle stand and guest house are the major schemes which were carried out as part of the current mahakumbabhishekam. The balalayam for the temple was performed in July last.
The temple does not have spacious ‘car streets’ all around it. This posed a serious constraint for space for the execution of the renovation-related works which commenced six years ago. The temple authorities kept shifting the queue system to facilitate the renovation works.
Vellamandi N. Natarajan, Minister for Tourism, S. Valarmathi, Minister for Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare, K.S. Palanisamy, Collector, M. Veera Shanmuga Moni, Commissioner of HR and CE, were among those who were present.
G. Thennarasu, Executive Officer, supervised the arrangements for the smooth conduct of mahakumbabhishekam.