By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Jan. 4: The famous Dakshinkali Temple, which is located in southwest of Kathmandu, has gradually started drawing crowds of devotees like before the lockdown period.
The temple was opened for devotees around a month ago.
The temple premise is witnessing crowds with increasing number of visitors to the popular shrine and shopkeepers selling flowers, tea and breakfast and Khuwa.
The temple area is seeing crowds of late but the original form of crowded environment like earlier has not yet been noticed, said Bikash Karmacharya, one of the priests of the temple.
Comparatively, the number of devotees has increased on Tuesdays and Saturdays in recent weeks, and the environment here is gradually returning to normalcy with growing number of visitors, he said.
The devotees are not allowed directly to enter the main temple premises of Dakshinkali like in the past.
They can offer their puja items to the goddess through the priest of the temple.
The priest accepts their puja items from the devotees outside the fence and offers it to the goddess and returns the prasad to the devotees.
In case of animal sacrifice, only around 60 to 70 per cent sacrifices of normal time are taking place these days. People are not offering animals in the name of goddess in recent days, priest Karmacharya said.
The fear of global pandemic COVID-19 still lingers and people hesitate to travel by public vehicles. As a result, most of the devotees arrive here riding motorbikes and private cars, said Shankar Manandhar, president of Dakshinkali Temple Management Committee.
Winter season is the peak time to picnic in different parks and temples sites. Enthusiasm of picnicking among the people has been affected by the COVID-19. As a result, only a few groups are found at the picnic spots in recent days. In the past, all picnic sites used to be fully occupied in winter, especially on Saturday and holidays, he said.
Meanwhile, the temple premises will be repaired by paving stones in place of marble.
The use of marble on the premises will be replaced with stones after the Department of Archeology (DoA) has objected to the use of marble in the religious site.
The DoA has allocated Rs. 3 million for this work. The placement of stone will start in a few days, he informed.
The temple was established by King Pratap Malla. The image of Dakshinkali was set up in the 10th century by Vedic followers.
The temple premise is filled with many bronze bells offered by devotees and images of bronze lions stand at the main entrance of Dakshinkali.