Tirupati temple

Thiruvananthapuram, April 4: The lord of Tirupati is set to travel further south.

If everything goes according to plans, the Venkateswara temple in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, will soon have a “twin” in Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, albeit smaller in size.

The shrine will come up on land donated by the Kanyakumari-based Vivekananda Kendra, barely 12km from the Kudankulam nuclear power plant. Preliminary work on the project will start this month.

“We have already handed over 4.68 acres from our campus to the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) that administers the Tirupati temple. The registration process for the land was completed last week and the papers were handed over,” the director of the Vivekananda Kendra, P. Parameswaran, told The Telegraph.

Anand Kumar Reddy, the Tamil Nadu local area committee chairperson of the TTD, explained the idea behind the project.

“In 2010, the TTD conducted the Srinivasa Kalyanam (a ritual reminiscent of the marriage of Lord Srinivasa — an incarnation of Vishnu — and Goddess Padmavathi) at the Kendra. The response was overwhelming. While we expected only about 1.5 lakh devotees, close to 5 lakh people participated. This prompted TTD officials to think if it was the lord’s way of conveying that he wanted to be in Kanyakumari. That was the starting point.”

The TTD, Reddy said, had set aside Rs 42.5 crore in the current year’s budget for the preliminary work on the shrine. “Land survey and soil testing will commence sometime this month and then a detailed project report will be drawn up and submitted for approval.”

Although smaller in size, the shrine will replicate all the paraphernalia and rituals followed in Tirupati, Reddy said. It will also have a centre for teaching the Vedas and a shelter for cattle.

Kendra public relations officer K.P. Raghunathan Nair said the project was likely to be completed in five years and had the potential to change the landscape of the coastal town, which houses the Vivekananda rock memorial. Another important landmark is the Kanyakumari Devi temple, less than 4km by road from the plot set aside for the new shrine.

The scenic locale, flanked by the ocean on its south-eastern boundary, falls in Coastal Regulation Zone 2 and all requisite approvals were being obtained for the construction, Nair added.

Spread over 108 acres, the Kanyakumari Vivekananda Kendra was founded in 1972 by veteran freedom fighter Eknath Ranade, who was also the moving force behind the rock memorial.