Rameswaram, August 7, 2013: Thousands of people from various parts of the country took a holy dip at the ‘Agnitheertha Kadarkarai’ in front of the Sri Ramanathaswamy temple here and paid obeisance to their forefathers on the occasion of ‘Aadi Ammavasai.’

People started arriving at the pilgrim island right from Monday evening by trains, buses and private vehicles and the ‘Agnitheertha Kadarkarai’ on the Bay of Bengal presented a sea of humanity on Tuesday morning. After performing rites in memory of their forefathers, the devotees took a holy dip and offered prayers at the temple.

Procession

As the pilgrims were taking the holy dip, the idols of Lord Ram, accompanied by Sita and Lakshmanan were brought in a procession on a golden ‘Garuda Vahanam’ to the shore after which, ‘Theerthavari urchavam’ (sprinkling of holy water) was performed.

This was followed by Ambal’s ‘veedhi ula’ in a golden palanquin.

In the evening, the deity of Lord Ram was taken back to the temple in a procession around the four car streets and the day’s event drew to a close with the procession of Ambal in a silver car at around 8 p.m., the authorities said.

The district police had made elaborate security arrangements and Superintendent of Police, N. M. Mylvahanan, personally supervised the security arrangements on Monday.

Watch towers

The temple authorities had erected six watch towers to monitor the movements of the devotees and barricades on the sea shore and inside the temple to avoid any untoward incident.

Source: The Hindu, August 7, 2013