Navratri 2023: Visakhapatnam Temple Decorates Goddess With Currency, Gold Worth Rs 2 Crore – News18

The festival of Navratri is currently being celebrated across India. Several beautiful temples can be seen adorned with flowers. A 146-year-old temple — Kanyaka Parameshwari Ammavari Temple — at Kurupam Market in Visakhapatnam has taken its decoration a notch higher, leaving devotees surprised. The temple has been adorned with currency notes and gold ornaments worth crores. Administrators of the temple noted that the currency used in the decoration of the temple and particularly, the idol of the goddess Kanyaka Parameshwari, is worth a total of Rs 2 crore.

During the 10-day Navaratri festival in this temple, many incarnations of the goddess were worshipped. In the early morning, special abhishekam was performed to seek blessings of the goddess. Abhishekam was performed using 18 types of liquids including milk, curd, sandalwood, honey, and a few other fruit juices. On the occasion, the goddess was adorned with ornaments and 108 golden flowers. For the decoration, around six kg of gold ornaments, gold sari, gold biscuits, six kg silver articles, silver biscuits, and two crore of Indian currency were used.

The temple management, on the occasion, said that for the last 20 years — during the Sharan Navaratri festival — the goddess has been decorated with currency notes, and gold and silver ornaments. They added, “People believe that it is lucky for them to place the currency and the gold before the Ammavaru (goddess) for the puja. It is all a public contribution. As per temple tradition, the idol of the goddess is wrapped with gold jewellery and currency notes of various denominations on Devi Navaratri Utsavalu (on the day when the deity takes the avatar of Mahalakshmi). They used denominations of Rs 1 to 500 to decorate Goddess Parameswari.”

It is worth noting that Vasavi Kanyaka Parameshvari is a Hindu goddess. The devotees identify her in the form of Parvati, and sometimes as a form of Lakshmi in Vaishnava tradition.