More than two crore pilgrims congregated at the forest areas of Medaram tribal area, a sacred place in Telangana’s Mulugu district to witness the installation of ‘Sammakka’ as a part of a four-day-biennial Sammakka-Saralamma Jatara on Thursday. This is said to be Asia’s largest tribal festival where the Koya priests will bring the tribal goddess in a procession from Chilakalagutta, where she was installed in the form of Kumkum Bharani (Kumkum box).
Following her arrival, the priests offer special prayers to Sammakka where the police and other government department officials will welcome the tribal goddess with government formalities. The District Superintendent of Police will start the procession by firing three rounds of bullets in air at Chilakalagutta.
Later, the goddess will be brought to Medaram and installed atop the ‘Gadde’ amidst the dance performances of Shivasattulu and Pothurajulu. Known to be one of the the important events in the Telangana Kumbhamela, the officials said that more than one-half crore pilgrims will witness the installation of Sammakka.
Officials said that Central Minister G Kishan Reddy and Telangana Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy will be attending the installation of Samakka on Thursday. A large number of devotees have been waiting in queue lines to have a darshan of the ‘Gadde’ after having a holy bath in Jampannavagu rivulet. According to the official estimates as many one-half crore pilgrims from eight states including Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand will visit Medaram on Thursday.
Sajjanar, MD of TSRTC issued a statement saying that the RTC buses will reach very close to the Gaddes and appealed the pilgrims to utilize RTC buses in reaching Medaram “We are plying as many as 6,000 buses to Medaram after estimating a huge number of passengers to the Jatara with Mahalakshmi Scheme, a free bus scheme for women and we decided to increase the bus services in order to avoid any inconvenience to the pilgrims”, he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has extended his greetings to the people of Telangana in the back drop of inauguration of the tribal festival. He called Medaram Jatara as a replica to cultural heritage. He said that this type of tribal festivals will build unity among the people. They make the heritage of culture and tradition to live forever, the prime minister said.
Earlier, the tribal festival was inaugurated with the installation of tribal deity Saralamma atop the ‘Gadde’ in Medaram amidst the atmosphere filled with spiritual fervour and devotion with a significant surge of devotees on Wednesday. The spiritual process of the installation of Saralamma atop the Gadde started on Wednesday morning itself.
Before that women from Kannepally village cleansed the Gadde and drew rangolis on the spiritual stage. Minister Seethakka along with district collector Tripathi and SP Sabarish reached Kannepally by 5 pm on Wednesday.
After performing secret pujas to the presiding deity, the Koya priests started a procession for Medaram with Monte, the replica to Saralamma at around 7.41 pm. The residents of the Kannepally villager offered Mangal Harathi to the tribal deity and the police along with thousands of tribal youth provided security to the procession along the route. The tribal women in traditional dress followed the deity while dancing all the way.
Large serpentine queue of pilgrims at the Jampannavagu rivulet, a tributary of the Godavari, have been eagerly waiting to have a glimpse of Saralamma crossing the rivulet. The priests at the Sammakka temple in Medaram welcomed the tribal deity in a traditional way.
After the priests performed pujas, along with other tribal deities Pagididda Raju and Govinda Raju, Saralamma was brought to the premises of the Gadde and all lights in the vicinity were turned off. Amidst the moonlight, the three tribal deities were installed atop their respective Gaddes at 12:20 am during the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.
The pilgrims then took a holy bath in the Jappannavagu after the darshan of Saralamma.
The state government has been officially organizing the Jatara after it declared the tribal festival as one of the state festivals, which will be held till February 24. On the third day of the Jatara, i.e. on February 23, Friday, the devotees will offer jaggery equal to their weight, to the presiding deities. Some of the devotees also offer roosters, rams and goats to the deities. On the conclusion and final day of the Jatara i.e. on February 24, the tribal deities enter the forest.
The various government departments made arrangements for the smooth flow of the tribal festival. The state government has been spending more than Rs 100 crore to conduct the Jatara in a grand manner with thousands of police personnel being deployed on special duty in and around the Medaram shrine.
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