The Arat ceremony was held with religious fervour in the Pampa river on the foothills of Sabarimala on Thursday. A large number of Ayyappa devotees thronged the foothills to witness the ceremony held in a specially prepared Arat-kadavu in the Pampa. The deity was taken out in a procession on a caparisoned elephant from the Sabarimala Sannidhanam to Pampa after the ‘ushapuja’ in the morning.
Tantri Kandararu Rajeevararu, assisted by Melsanthi V.N. Vasudevan Namboodiri, performed the Arat-puja. The deity was offered ‘ashtabhishekom’, ‘manjal-neerattu’, and ‘utchapuja’ at the Arat-kadavu.
The deity was seated at the Maha Ganapati temple precincts at Pampa till 3.30 p.m. Devotees from different parts of the State as well as from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh attended the ceremony.
A large number of women turned up to worship the deity at Pampa. The Arat procession returned to the Sannidhanam in the evening and the Tantri brought down the flag on the temple mast, marking the culmination of this year’s temple festival.
Surendran at Sabarimala
Bharatiya Janata Party State general secretary K. Surendran undertook the pilgrimage to the hillock on Thursday. Mr. Surendran reached the Pandalam Palace early in the morning and took the ‘Irumudikkettu,’ which he had kept in the safe custody of the palace authorities following his arrest at Nilackal during the previous pilgrimage season.
Mr. Surendran told mediapersons that the issue of women’s entry to Sabariamala and the government’s ‘anti-believer stance’ would be a major campaign issue.