Tirupati, June 15: A controversy has erupted at the Tirupati temple over the shape of the signature tilak on the deity after a senior priest was suspended for allegedly putting it the wrong way.

At the heart of the stand-off at the country's richest temple is a long-running feud between two sects of Vaishnavite priests, one of which applies a U-shaped tilak and the other a Y-shaped one on the forehead of Lord Venkateshwara.

The rivalry had once reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that both types of tilaks would be used by rotation for 15 days each month. The warring camps have kept a close eye on each other since the ruling in the early 1990s and have often traded accusations of overshooting the deadline.

Senior priest A.V. Arun Dikshitulu got the stick after he applied his Vadakalai sect's U-shaped tilak on June 1. The other camp, the Thengalais, claimed the Vadakalais' turn had ended by then and Dikshitulu should have used the Y-shaped tilak.

The Vadakalai tilak - called namam - is a white U-shaped mark with yellow paste in the middle. The Thengalais' "Y" mark has a red line cutting across.

The symbolic namam on the deity's forehead, seen from several metres away, is a key attraction for the nearly 70,000 devotees who visit the shrine each day. Chief priest Ramana Dikshitulu denied the allegations of a breach.