Tirupati Lord Venkateshwara Darshan

   

     Tirupati is one of the important abode of Lord Venkateshwara, also known as Lord Vishnu.  This temple city is located in south India in the state of Andra pradesh.  The temple is situated on 7 hills, known as Tirumala.  Temple is open all the 365 days of the year.  Darshan (Visiting the temple) is allowed in time slots.  There are  are two major Queue for Darshan.

Queues:

     One of them is called Dharma-darshan, for which there is no fee.  The other one is called Sudarshan-darshan, with a fee of Rs.50/- per person.  There are other types of darshan available such as Sheegra-darshan, with a fee of Rs.750/-, VIP entrance.

     All the queue merge before having Darshan of the Temple Diety, Lord Venkateshwara.  Basically the differentiation is on the logic of people paying might be lesser compared to the ones who don't want to.  So, usually the Sudarshan-Darshan is smaller queue than the Dharma-darshan.  Though sometimes it might happen that the Sudarshan-Darshan is longer than Dharma-Darshan on a particular day, resulting in more time being spent by Sudarshan queque folks.  This might happen with the Sheegra-Darshan queue.

Special Poojas:

     There are other ways of Darshan on some special days of the year.  This happens when there is special pooja (Rituals) performed.  For this tickets will be available and could be booked for 2 or more people, depending on availability.  The Darshan for these special pooja will be usually in early morning and coinciding with the normal Darshans.

Special kind of Queue:

     There is another unique Darshan method for people who go on foot to the hill-temple.  Walking up the hill to the shrine normally take around 3 hours for an average person.  These pilgrims who go on foot get a token  on their way up the hill, which gets endorsed at some other point on the way up hill before shrine.  Once on top of the hill, there is a special queue which is only for people with the token.  As mentioned earlier all the queues of normal darshan (other than special pooja tickets) get merged before Darshan.

Darshan:

     There are two important shrines on top of the hill.  One is Sri Varaha Swamy temple and the other one is the main temple the Sri Venkateshwara (Sri Varu) temple.  Many believe that pilgrims have to first have darshan of Sri Varaha swamy and then have Darshan of Lord Venkateshwara.  This is due the mythology that Lord Sri Varaha swamy (also one of the avatars of Lord Vishnu) owned the Tirumala, before Lord Venkateshwara landed on earth.  He had give permission to Lord Venkateshwara to stay on the hill.
Practically many pilgrims have darshan of Sri Varaha swamy after Lord Venkateshwara.  Sometime some of the pilgrims miss having Darshan of Sri Varaha swamy altogether.

Time taken for Darshan:

     The usual time taken from the time you enter the queue till darshan of Diety:
Dharma darshan : 2 hours to 8 hours
Sudharshan darshan : 1 hour to 4 hours
Sheegra darshan : <1 hour to 2 hours
Walking pilgrim darshan : 2 hours to 8 hours
Special pooja tickets : 30 mins to 2 hours

     These times are during usual conditions.  These will change based on how many pilgrims are actually visiting a particular day and the special poojas being performed on that day.  Also it is sometimes affected by some high-profile VIP visit to temple.

     The times are bound to be drastically high during special days such as new year (1st Jan), Vaikunta Ekadashi, summer holidays of school going children, weekends and long weekends.

 

Swamy Ayyappa Darshan

Swamy Ayyappa temple is situated in Kerala.
Darshan to this temple is open only during certain period of every year. It starts on the 1st of Karthigai month of the solar calendar (Around November) and goes on till Makara shankranti day (Around mid January). The day of Makara sankranti is the most auspicious day to have darshan of Swami Ayyappa.
The Darshan of Swami Ayyappa is open to all aged men, girl children and old women only.

The three main auspicious deeds to be performed at the Swamy Ayyappa pilgrimage are:

Swamy Ayyappa Darshan
Climbing the 18 steps for Darshan
Darshan of Makara Jyothi (Light)


Swami Ayyappa Darshan to all who are eligible, the climbing of pious 18 steps of the Swami Ayyappa temple requires the devotee to carry the Irumudi (Swami Ayyappa specific offerings, as described below*) and wear Malaa.
The Makara Jyothi is seen on the Makara Sankranti day only.

*Preparing Irumudi and Malaa wear process:

Irumudi and wearing Malaa are to be performed by Senior Swami (...Ok, so now we have the concept of Swami, explained below#) on to the junior devotees or first time devotees, going on the pilgrimage. The senior Swami performing the process of giving Malaa and preparing Irumudi has to be paid nominal amount of money as dakshina for his services.
Malaa which is a chains of a particular of beeds have to worn and wear Vaesti (also called panche). Once these are worn, the devotee shall be a teetotaller, shall not speak harsh words and be addressed and address every devotee wearing Malaa as Swami as the call name.

Wearing of Malaa is absolutely essential to be able to climb the pious 18 steps in the temple of Swamy Ayyappa for His darshan.

Irumudi:

This is the bag which contains the offerings to Swami Ayyappa. The offerings in this bag are:

1. One coconut filled with ghee after emptying the coconut water and sealed.
2. One cocunut as is.
3. A packet Special type of rice.
4. A set of camphor, incense sticks, thirunur, etc.

I am not well versed with details of all the components in the Irumudi, and will update as and when I get to know more of the items present in there.
Basically this is a standard set of items which are carried in the Irumudi (bag), so any shop in Erimely or Guruvayur (towns on way to temple) will be able to provide as a package. This should cost max Rs. 200/- including the cost of an additional hang bag. The cost of Vaesti (panche) is additional as thats a cloth and available in different shop, costing around max of Rs. 150/-.

#Swamis

Every devotee going on pilgrimage to Swamy Ayyappa Darshan wearing Malaa are called Swami. The devotee taking pilgrimage first time with Malaa is called Kanni Swamy (First timer), this pilgrimage is usually taken for 18 consequtive years to gain the grace and cleanse one self of sins. This could be repeated for many cycles of 18 years also... so the 19th year (19th time visit to temple for Darshan) devotee is again kanni Swami.