Kalahastheeswara to ride on gold-plated vahanas

Tirupati: The Brahmotsavams in Sri Kalahasti during Sivaratri next month will be a visual delight for the devotees with Lord Shiva to ride on gold-plated vahanas.

The decision to gold-plate the vahanas was taken with more than 100-year-old vahanas having been damaged badly, especially Aswa (Horse) vahanam which sustained severe damages and it became difficult to use it, said D Bhramaramba, Executive Officer of Sri Kalahasteeswara Devasthanam.

She told The Hans India, “When we were thinking about repairing vahanas, a devotee from Nellore, Prabhakar Reddy came forward and offered to donate funds needed for gold-plated vahanas”. Originally vahanas were made of wood and covered with silver. But, the silver plates were also tearing off into pieces. Now, eight vahanas are getting repaired and being gold-plated.

Sri Kalahastheeswara Devasthanam officials have removed the silver cover on these eight vahanams and sent only wooden vahanas to Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu where the repairs were being carried out. “The total cost was estimated to be about Rs.1.5 crores”, said Bhramaramba. Now, repairs were carried out first to all the vahanas and covered by copper plate on which the gold coating will come up.

These eight vahanas are Nandi, Nemali, Gaja, Sesha, Yali, Hamsa, Simha and Gaja. EO was in regular touch with the people at Kumbakonam who were doing the work to see that the work was completed without any hurdles and delay.

“These vahanas will become all new and will have long life. There will be no need of any repairs for them in the years to come”, said the Executive Officer. The work may be completed by January 15 by all probability or at the most they will reach the temple by this month end and will be available for Sivaratri Brahmotsavams to be commenced from February 8. This year Sivatatri comes on February 13.

To another question EO said, she was trying to make arrangements for ‘Naga Pratishta’ for which she was looking for some details. “Many devotees were also asking for Naga pratishta, but storage and how to proceed are issues before me”, she said.

Regarding the master plan, she said, now the work of taking measurements of the houses to be acquired was going on. On compensation part, the government is finalising the compensation and will be paid accordingly. Once that is completed, master plan works will go on according to the schedule, she said.

By V Pradeep Kumar