Telangana: Medaram Jatara begins with fanfare

The jatara got underway with the customary arrival of goddess Sarakka from Kannepally village to the main shrine at Medaram.

Mulugu: The four-day tribal fair, Sammakka Saralamma Jatara, popularly known as Medaram Jatara, began on Wednesday with scores of devotees paying obeisance to the tribal deities.

The jatara got underway with the customary arrival of goddess Sarakka from Kannepally village to the main shrine at Medaram. The rituals began late Tuesday evening with the tribal priests performing rituals at a small temple at Kannepally located four kilometres from Medaram invoking goddesses onto them before coming out of the temple. The tribal priests brought a casket of vermilion and bamboo stick wrapped in red cloth symbolising Sammakka and after three days, they will take back the deities and leave them in the forest until the next Jatara.

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The deity was accorded traditional honours by tribal priests and district officials. The police had difficulty in escorting the tribal priests bringing deity Sarakka as devotees tried to touch the feet of the priests. In the evening, the tribal priests brought the deity Sammakka from Chilkalgutta hillocks. The idols of Sarakka’s father Pagidigidda Raju and husband Govinda Raju were also brought to Medaram by the priest.

The devotees took a holy dip at Jampanna vagu before proceeding to Kannepalli village. The devotees offered jaggery of their weight considering it to be gold and also offered red blouse pieces, vermilion and turmeric to the deities in large quantities. Devotees, both tribal and non-tribal, from different parts of Telangana and neighbouring States of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka will be participating in the four-day fair.

Over two crore people are expected to visit the jatara over the next one week. Officials said about 50 lakh devotees have already visited Medaram since the last few days. The district administration has made elaborate arrangements for the event. About 14,000 police personnel have been deployed for the smooth conduct of the fair.

The TSRTC is operating 6,000 buses from different parts of the State to ferry devotees to Medaram. The RTC management is expecting to transport over 50 lakh people during the fair.

President Droupadi Murmu is also slated to visit Medaram on February 23 along with Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy.