Hyderabad: A weaver from the city will offer ‘pattu vastralu’ (silk garments) to the deities at Bhadrachalam for the celestial wedding of Lord Rama and Sita Devi on Sri Rama Navami. SS Jayaraju, a resident of Secunderabad, will be offering the ‘pattu vastralu’ for the fifth consecutive year. As devotees of Lord Rama, his family has been offering silk garments on Rama Navami for three generations.For the past couple of weeks, Jayaraju’s team has been working on a weaving machine set up at the temple premises to weave Pochampally garments for the deities.“We completed weaving and will hand over the clothes to temple authorities on Thursday, a day before the celestial wedding. There are two sarees for Sita Devi and six pairs of ‘angavatsaram’ and ‘panche’ for Lord Rama, Lord Lakshmana, and Lord Hanuman,” the 61-year-old told TOI. He added that the deities will be adorned with these silk garments on Thursday and Friday on the occasion of Sri Rama Navami.Jayaraju, who is also the former chairman of Ganesh temple in Secunderabad, said his family are devotees of Lord Rama and have been offering silk garments for three generations. “Every Rama Navami, my family, right from my grandfather’s time, has offered silk garments to Lord Rama. However, only in the last five years have we started doing this officially, as a letter has been released by the govt. Otherwise, we have been following this tradition for the last 100 years,” he said, adding that he intends to continue it as long as he is alive and pass it on to the next generation.Jayaraju said he hires weavers from across the state every year to make silk garments for the deities on the temple premises. “We leave the loom in Bhadrachalam and keep it locked to be used next year, as transporting it every year will make it much costlier,” he said, adding that the cost of making these garments is around Rs 2 lakh.
