Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana along with his wife offered prayers at the hill shrine of Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy here on Tuesday.
The couple was offered a ‘Poornakumbham’ welcome amid chanting of vedic hymns by the temple’s high priests, as Minster for Endowments Indrakaran Reddy and Minister for Energy G. Jagadish Reddy, on behalf of the State government, received them.
Special prayers were held in Balalayam, the makeshift temple that houses the deity, since the main temple was closed for redevelopment in 2016.
Justice Ramana and family, in double masks and surrounded by priests, senior officials and leaders, spent about an hour in the darshan of the Pancha Narsimha (the deity in five forms) and later participated in Swarna Pushparchana.
Extending courtesies, Mr. Indrakaran Reddy presented them a memento and temple Executive Officer N. Geeta handed over traditional silk robes. After the recital of blessings, the couple made their offerings in the temple hundi.
Yadadri Temple Development Authority vice chairman and CEO G. Kishan Rao and the temple’s architect Ananda Sai later escorted the CJI and his family for a tour of the finished main temple which is now in the trial stage for electrical and lighting works, in the annex.
Justice Ramana, according to officials, was all praise for the sculptors and the project team, for the intricate carvings, the gopurams and the embellished themes inside the temple. And he opined that the temple was ideally constructed to encourage devotion for generations to come, an official said.
The Chief Justice of India, who was on a three-day visit to the State, spent at least three hours on the hill shrine, admiring the temple work and also inspected the under-construction temple city, presidential suites, pilgrim cottages and the landscape gardens, before leaving for Hyderabad at around 11.45 a.m.