Devotees throng Vishnu temples in Bengaluru amid Covid fear

Bengaluru, Dec 25 : Amid the Covid-19 scare, devotees offered prayers at various prominent Lord Vishnu temples across Bengaluru on the occasion of Vaikuntha Ekadashi festival.
All the temples followed the Covid protocols strictly such as maintaining social distancing, while several temples voluntarily suspended distribution of ‘Teertha’ (holy water), instead they gave away ‘laddus’ as ‘prasadam’ to the devotees.
Besides this, the temples also restricted the entry of the devotees as the festival is observed for more than 10 days.
Several prominent Vishnu temples, including Tirupati Devasthanams’s (TTD) Vishnu temple in Vyalikaval, ISKCON, Kote Venkataramana Swamy in Chamarajpet, Srinivasa Temple in Mahalakshmi Layout, and Tirumalagiri Temple in J.P. Nagar have been decked up with a variety of flowers.
Septuagenarian Padmanabha Rao, a devotee who visited the TTD temple in Vyalikaval, told IANS that the Vaishnava worshipers (followers of Vishnu) believe that ‘Vaikunta Dwaram’ or ‘the gate to the Lord’s inner sanctum’ is opened on this day.
“The Margashirsha Shukla Paksha Ekadashi in the lunar calendar is known as a ‘Mokshada Ekadashi’. Special prayers, yagnas, discourses and speeches are arranged at Vishnu temples across the world on this auspicious day,” he explained.