Chennai: Pilgrims and devotees spend hours together – sometimes up to 7 hours – to have a fleeting darshan of Athi Varadar in Kanchipuram. The place before Vasantha Mandapam was cramped and did not allow the congregation of a large number of people and this led to the delay in darshan.
Hence, a request rose among a section of the devotees to shift the idol of Athi Varadar to a more spacious area of the Sri Devarajaswami Temple to allow easy darshan.
But today, the principal secretary of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department, Phanindra Reddy, ruled it out.
He told a website there was no plan to shift the deity from the Vasantha Mandapam to a more spacious spot of the temple.
Reddy pointed out that it was not possible to change the tradition (aidheegam) of the temple and that people have to have darshan only at the Vasantha Mandapam.