Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple's Ekadashi ritual violated for first time in history | EXCLUSIVE

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Major rituals that have been performed over centuries were violated for the first time at the revered Sree Padmanabhaswamy in Thiruvananthapuram. For the first time in history, the ceremony of adorning Lord Krishna with ‘Mohini Alankaram’ on the day of Ekadashi was stalled.

Mohini Alankaram is a ritual where lord Krishna adorns a saree and is decked up beautifully as an enchanting Mohini. This ritual is carried out religiously during the Ekadashi season. Devotees will come in thousands to the temple every season to see their favourite lord in the Mohini avatar. However, all of them were left dejected this time as they couldn't see the Mohini Alankaram and were shocked to learn that the age-old tradition was violated for the first time in history.

After Padmanabhaswamy, Thiruvambady Krishna and Narasimha Swamy are important deities in the temple.

When contacted, the officials concerned agreed to comment on the issue. According to them, the dearth of sandalwood was the mainspring for halting the century-old ritual. The sandalwood required for the temple ceremonies is normally ground by the Keezh Santhi. These duties are entrusted to them by the chief priest clan of 'Nambis'. Sandalwood grinding has been done mechanically for some years now. But just before Ekadashi day, the machine was given away for repair work. Minding this, the required sandalwood was ground beforehand and preserved. However, the quantity was not sufficient to conduct the ritual.

According to officials, the dearth of sandalwood was reported earlier, but the Keezh Santhis were hesitant to apprise the situation to the chief priest clan. According to reports, they were not even ready to grind the sandalwood by hand.

The temple authorities have filed a report about the issue. More steps will be taken after learning about the issue in detail, commented the manager. Devotees by large are disappointed and shocked that such a major ritual has been halted for the first time, only for the lax shown by priests. They are now demanding strong punitive actions against officials who carried a desultory approach while conducting major rituals inside the temple.

Just months before, there was a controversy when a non-Hindu woman visited the SreePadmanabha Swamy temple with only a few hours left for the Alpashi festival. Following this, the Tantri of the temple suggested to re-perform the ritual before the commencing of the Alpashi festival.