The spiritually charged atmosphere around the Sabarimala hillock reached its pinnacle as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, who had camped on the hillock for the past several days, witnessed the auspicious 'Makara Jyothi' during the Makaravilakku festival on Monday.

Devotees eagerly waited in the Sannidhanam and surrounding areas, chanting ‘Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa’, to catch a glimpse of the celestial star Makara and the divine light.

All the ten designated viewpoints arranged to facilitate the nearly four lakh devotees to witness the 'Makara Jyothi' and 'Makaravilakku,'were densely packed with a sea of people.

Earlier, the boxes carrying 'Thiruvabharanam' or the sacred jewels that were brought in from the Pandalam palace, reached the hillock here around 5.15 pm and were handed over to the temple Tantri Kandararau Mahesh Mohanararu. Devaswom Minister K Radhakrishnan, Travancore Devaswom Board president P S Prasanth, etc were also present on the occasion.

The presiding deity was adorned with the 'Thiruvabharanam,' and the 'Deeparadhana' took place around 6.45 pm. A couple of minutes later, the bright flame of Makaravilakku flickered thrice from around Ponnambalamedu situated in the hillocks opposite to the temple, even as the chants of 'Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa' reverberated in the air. Apart from the Sannidhanam, devotees filled various vantage points around the hillock to witness the celestial light, resulting in an unprecedented rush. Pilgrims had set up temporary shelters called 'parnasalas' at Pandithavalam.

The Makarasankrama pooja, marking the sun's movement from Dakshinayanam to Utharayanam, had taken place earlier in the day at 2.46 am. As part of it, the ghee that had been brought from the Kowdiyar Palace in Thiruvananthapuram was poured on the idol of Lord Ayyappa.

A tight security was put in place as the Kerala Police deployed an additional batch of 1000 police officials over and above the scheduled deployment of 2500 personnel. The KSRTC, meanwhile, operated 800 buses for pilgrims returning from Sabarimala to various parts of the state.

Earlier in the day, Devaswom Minister K Radhakrishnan awarded the prestigious 'Harivarasanam' award to renowned Tamil singer P K Veeramani Dasan. The award, comprising a cash prize of Rs one lakh, citation, and plaque, was presented at a function held at the Sannidhanam Auditorium in Sabarimala. P K Veeramani Dasan has sung over 6000 devotional songs in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Sanskrit languages. Ranni MLA Pramod Narayan presided over the function.

With the annual pilgrimage season ending on January 21, devotees can have darshan in the temple until January 20 night. The annual pilgrimage season will draw to a close on January 21 morning, a day after the performance of the Guruti ritual at Malikappuram.

Devaswom Minister Radhakrishnan, who inspected the arrangements in place at the Ayyappa temple here during the day, said the crowd’s influx to the hill shrine was much higher than anticipated throughout the season.

“The number of elderly women and children was much higher than the previous seasons, while the overall number of devotees arriving per hour too was very high. Given the rush, the state government and the TDB augmented the facilities for pilgrims in coordination with the departments concerned. Despite all these, attempts were made to cast aspersions on Sabarimala and the pilgrimage to here, which were proved wrong eventually,” he said.