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| Muhurthakaal Nadum vizha, 2023 .thehindu.com |
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| Srirangam Ranganathar temple, TN istockphoto.com/ |
Vaikuntha Ekadashi falls in the Margasisa or Margazhi month of the Hindu calendar and mainly in late December or early January, as per the English calendar. Vaikuntha Ekadasi 2023 date is 2nd January 2023. The major venue of this grand festival is Sri Ranganathar temple of Srirangam. At Adinatha temple, Azhwar Thirunagari and Triplicane Parthasarathy temple, Tirupati Balaji temple Vaikuntha ekadashi is celebrated with devotion and religious fervor.
In no other Vishnu temples the annual Vaikunta Ekadasi festival is celebrated on a more grandeur scale and more elaborately than Sri Ranganathar temple of Srirangam, TN. First among the 108 Divyadesam shrines glorified by the Azhwar saints, lakhs of devotees make a bee line to this holy shrine where it is a 22 day event that began on 12 November, 2023. The main event - the opening of the ‘Paramapadhavaasal’ will be in the early hours on December 23. Toward the end of October (24th) the customary ‘Muhurthakaal Nadum Vaibhavam’ (the ceremony of installation of a holy wooden pole) was held by the temple priests in the presence of a selected devotees including temple officials at the Temple premises on Wednesday. This was done with reverence with respect to ensuing Vaikunta Ekadasi festival 2023-24.
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| old imsge Namperumal emerging from Swarga vassal, srirangam .oneindia.com |
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| Utsava idol of Nammazhwar, en.wikiprdia.com |
After Raa pathu on 23 Dec. the festival culminates with the ‘Nammazhwar Moksham’ on January 2, 2024. Nammazhwar, fifth in the line of the twelve Alvars, is highly regarded as the foremost among the twelve Azhwars , and his contributions include a whooping 1352 among the 4000 stanzas in the Naalayira Divya Prabandam. In honor of him every year the Garuda sevai festival in Nava Tirupathi, the nine Vishnu temples in Thoothukudi region, and the Araiyar Sevai during the Vaikunta Ekadasi festival in Srirangam temple and other temples are dedicated to him
