Hyderabad weaver crafts ‘pattu vastralu’ for Sri Rama Navami at Bhadrachalam
HYDERABAD: A Secunderabad based weaver 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, 61, has been presenting silk garments for the occasion for the fifth consecutive year. His family has followed the tradition for three generations as devotees of Lord Rama.
For the past two weeks, Jayaraju and his team have been working on weaving machines set up at the temple premises to produce Pochampally silk 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 ‘angavastram’ and ‘panche’ for Lord Rama, Lord Lakshmana, and Lord Hanuman,” he told reporters.
He said the deities will be adorned with the silk garments on Thursday and Friday as part of the Sri Rama Navami celebrations.
Jayaraju, a former chairman of a Ganesh temple in Secunderabad, said his family has been offering silk garments for nearly 100 years. “Every Rama Navami, my family, 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 after receiving a government letter. Otherwise, we have followed this tradition for about 100 years,” he added.
He said he hires weavers from across the state each year to prepare the garments at the temple site.
“We leave the loom in Bhadrachalam and keep it locked for use next year, as transporting it annually would be costlier,” he said, adding that the cost of making the garments is around ₹2 lakh.
