Guruvayur Devaswom will serve a feast for 30,000 people on the occasion of Sri Krishna Jayanti, the birthday of Lord Krishna, on Thursday.
The feast, complete with payasam, is served at the Annalakshmi Hall and Thekke Nada Hall of the Guruvayur Sree Krishna Temple in Kerala's Thrissur from the morning. As many as 2,000 people can partake of the feast at a time.
The Devaswom has set up pandals to accommodate queues of devotees attending the feast. A special counter to book appams, an offering at the temple opened on Wednesday afternoon. A total of 41,470 appams will be prepared from Thursday morning, which will be offered to the Lord at night.
The temple's junior priests will be preparing appams and palpayasam, a rich rice pudding made by simmering rice in milk and sugar. Palpayasam worth Rs 7.43 will be prepared.
Special arrangements have been made for the darshan. Devaswom Pensioners' Association lit the lamp during nirmalyam at 3am, and for deeparadhana in the evening, to mark the 113rd anniversary of the installation of the lamp post column at Kizhakkenada.
High Court intervenes after report on marriage rush
The High Court of Kerala has directed the Guruvayur Devaswom and Guruvayur municipality to make necessary arrangements to avoid inconvenience to those attending marriages on August 21.
Several marriages are lined up for August 21, since the day has several auspicious hours. The court took suo motu cognisance of a Malayala Manorama report that said of a huge rush for booking slots for marriages. The report also said the advance booking facility has been put on hold after 200 people booked slots for holding weddings at the temple.
The devaswom administration submitted before the high court that the bookings have been resumed. The devaswom has decided to set up two more temporary wedding mandapas, or porches, besides the existing three, to manage the crowd.
The municipality told the court that it has assigned an adequate number of officials to register marriages, and more people will be deployed if necessary. The court concluded the proceedings after recording the explanation of the devaswom and the municipality.