Sunday, 17 NOVEMBER 2024 | PNS | JYOTIRMATH
The Badrinath Dham will be ceremoniously closed to the public for the winter on Sunday night. Meanwhile, the ritual process for closure of the shrine continued on the fourth day on Saturday. As part of the ceremonies on Saturday, Kadhai Bhog was offered in the Mata Lakshmi Mandir and special prayers were offered. Thereafter, prayers were offered to the goddess asking her to sit in the Garbh Grah of the Badrinath temple.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Badrinath temple will be closed for the winters at 9:07 PM on Sunday. The temple is being decked up in flowers for the occasion. As part of the Panch Pooja ritual for closure of the temple, the Rawal Amarnath Namboodari, Dharmadhikari Radhakrishna Thapliyal, Vedpathis Ravindra Bhatt and Amit Bandoliya along with the Lakshmi Mandir priests Sudhir Dimri and Arvind Dimri offered Kadhai Bhog in the Mata Lakshmi temple on Saturday afternoon.
The Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC) media in-charge Harish Gaur informed that as part of the ritual process for closure of the Badrinath temple for the winter, the Rawal will dress up as a woman and install goddess Lakshmi in the sanctum sanctorum of the Badrinath temple on Sunday. Shortly before this, Uddhav and Kuber will arrive in the temple. Later at night, the final process for closing the portals of the temple will be started. The idol of the lord will be wrapped in a ghee coated woollen blanket after which the temple will be closed to the public at 9:07 PM. The closure of the Badrinath temple to the public will mark the formal end of the Char Dham Yatra this year.
