It is not very easy to have the darshan of Lord Sri Venkateshwara
Swamy unless you have bought some special ‘Seva’ ticket. These ‘Seva’ tickets
are sold in limited quantity and will have to be booked in advance. With such
tickets, you will have to report at the specified time at the main entrance of the
‘Vaikuntam’ queue complex. This complex has many compartments between two
gangways. Each compartment has gallery type seating to accommodate about 300
persons. The compartments have TVs for entertainment and vendors selling snacks
and soft drinks. Devotees are made to wait in these compartments. Depending on
the type of darshan or ‘Seva’ devotees are let into the main gangway to queue
up for the darshan of the Lord.
The free darshan called ‘Sarvadarshanam’ might take 4 to 12
hours of waiting in the queue complex and after such a long wait they can be in
the main temple for a few seconds and a fraction of a second in front of the
main deity. The other ‘non-Seva’
darshans are ‘Sudershanam token system’ darshan at Rs. 50/-, which has a
specific reporting time so that the waiting time is slightly lowered. And
‘Seeghra darshanam’ at Rs. 300/- which is a little faster. All these special
darshan devotees and ‘Seva’ darshan devotees are combined in the common queue
of ‘Sarvadarshanam’ devotees at different points closer to the Temple depending
on the value of their ticket.
In any case except for a very few ‘Sevas’ all devotees get to
spend only a few seconds in the Sanctum sanctorum and less than a second in
front of Lord Sri Venkateshwara Swamy. But the entire experience is a very fulfilling
one. Whenever possible we try to have more than one darshan during our trips to
Tirupati.
The daily ‘Sevas’ are Suprabatham, Thomala Seva, Archana,
Kalyanotsavam, Arjita Brahmotsavam, Dolotsavam or Unjal Seva, Vasanthotsavam
and Sahasra Deepalankarana Seva. Apart from this, there are other special
weekly ‘Sevas’. One very important weekly (Friday) ‘Seva’ which our entire
family got to witness a few years back is ‘Poorabhishekam’ when we got to sit
in the Sanctum sanctorum in front of the deity for close to one hour and
participate in the ‘Abhishekam’ ritual. It is the most satisfying darshan of
Sri Venakteshwars Swamy. Nowadays these tickets are booked well in advance and
I understand that they are not available for the next 6 years.
It is said that Lord Sri Venkateshwara Swamy enjoys ‘Utsavams’ (festivals) and it is for this reason that every moment in the Temple and Tirumala town is celebrated as a festive occasion. Brahmotsavam is a major annual celebration of nine days when on each day there are different grand rituals conducted and procession of the Utsava Vigrahas carried out in grandeur.
uncle, i am unable to write in the blog draft. the creating and editing has been disabled for a day now. how did you manage to post this? was this already in draft?
ReplyDeleteI have not faced any problem in the last two days. May be the problem was on and off time-specific. Just now I added the write-up to the photos I posted on 22nd April.
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