Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam

Thousands perform ‘giri pradakshina’

Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

Long march: People participating in ‘giri pradakshina’, in Visakhapatnam on Friday night. —

VISAKHAPATNAM: There was heavy rush at Simhachalam temple, the abode of Lord Varaha Lakshmi Nrusimha Swamy, on the occasion of ‘guru poornima’ on Friday.

Thousands of devotees thronged the holy precincts of the temple at the break of dawn and there was a serpentine queue, stretching up to a few kilometres.

A unique feature of the day was the ‘giri pradakshina’ (going round the Simhachalam hill).

Starting at the first step of the stairs, the devotees had to walk a distance of about 32 km to complete the ‘pradakshina’ and then reach the sanctum sanctorum. Devotees believe that this is as good as making ‘bhoo pradakshina’ (going around the globe).

Instead of covering 32 km, some devotees prefer to perform ‘pradakshina’ fro 108 times around the temple premises. This is also considered equivalent to ‘bhoo pradakshina’.

According to Simhachalam temple Executive Officer Ramachandra Mohana Rao, the turnout of devotees this year was much higher than the previous years. In fact, the ‘pradakshina’ started on Thursday evening and the number of devotees who performed it this year was nearly 50,000.

Arrangements were made to supply water, food containing tamarind rice etc. to the devotees. Additional staff was deployed to maintain sanitation.

Commissioner of Endowments P. Sundarkumar, Bhimili MLA Karri Sitaramu were among those who had the darshan of the Lord in the early hours of the day.

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