Preparations for Teej festival complete
On the occasion of this year's Haritalika Teej festival, arrangements have been made to arrange lineups from four locations to make it easier for fasting devotees to attend Pashupatinath.
KATHMANDU: The Pashupati Area Development Fund (PADF) has said that all preparations have been completed for the devotees who come to visit the Pashupatinath temple on the occasion of the festival.
The fund has completed preparations such as queue management, volunteer mobilization, health camps, and free water distribution. On the occasion of Teej, arrangements have been made for all four security agencies to ensure security in the Pashupati area.
On the occasion of this year’s Haritalika Teej festival, arrangements have been made to arrange lineups from four locations to make it easier for fasting devotees to attend Pashupatinath.
The first queue has been set up for devotees coming from the Koteshwor-Tinkune-Sinamangal area to access the Pashupatinath temple by the eastern door through the Tilganga tourist ticket counter area and pass through the Ram Mandir-Aryaghat area.
The shoes and slippers of devotees entering by this path will be kept in the region between the two bridges over the Bagmati River heading to Aryaghat.
The second line has been set up to enter from the Mitrapark area. According to Gaurishankar Parajuli, head of the fund’s culture preservation branch, arrangements have been made for devotees entering from here to leave their shoes and slippers in the area in front of Shankaracharya Math.
The third queue will leave from the Gaushala-Pingalsthan-Panchdeval area, as planned. The devotees who enter from here will leave their shoes and slippers in front of the Bajraghar.
The fourth queue will enter the Pashupatinath temple via the south stretch of Guhyeshwori-Umakund-Kailash. The devotees who come by this way will leave their shoes and slippers in the open space in front of the Guru Mandir.
If you take images or videos of the Pashupatinath main temple and its grounds, your phone will be confiscated, and you will be fined in cash. Taking photos and films within Pashupatinath’s main temple has been forbidden since ancient times.
The fund recently announced that, as the habit of capturing images with mobile phones has expanded, they will take action with financial fines. The fund made this preparation after the trend of photographing places that have been illegal to photograph since time immemorial and publishing them on social media and making TikTok began to rise.
Since last year, the fund has imposed a fee of Rs 2,100 for photographing the sanctum sanctorum, Rs 1,100 for photographing the main temple, and Rs 500 for photographing the entire temple premises. He also stated that a group of fund personnel will be closely checking to see if cell phones were used to capture images in the Pashupatinath original temple location.
The fund will not allow male pilgrims to enter the Pashupatinath temple after 6:00 a.m. on Monday, Ashoj 12 (Sept 18), the day of Teej.
The fund has also called upon the regular pilgrims of Pashupatinath to return after visiting Pashupatinath before then.
