PM Narendra Modi pays obeisance at Lord Venkateswara shrine – Interesting facts about Tirupati temple

Tirupati: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday offered worship at the Lord Venkateswara shrine atop Tirumala hills near here.

Earlier in the day, the PM inaugurated the five-day annual Indian Science Congress at the Sri Venkateswara University.

The Vaishnavite temple is situated in the hill town of Tirumala at Tirupati in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. It is the world's richest Hindu temple.

Here are some of the interesting facts about the Tirupati Temple:

• Tirupati Laddu, which is offered as Naivedhyam to Venkateswara and as prasad to devotees after worshipping at the temple, have got GI (Geographical Indication) tag. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), a trust that manages the temple at Tirupati, had asked for the GI tag under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, in a bid to curb sale of fake laddus by hawkers.
• `Ananda Nilayam' is the sacred tower above the sanctum sanctorum of Lord Venkateswara of the Tirumala Devasthanam. The darshan of the gold-plated three-storey gopuram is considered as divine as Lord Venkateswara himself. Years ago, the pilgrims who could not worship at the temple used to satisfy themselves with the darshan of the Ananda Nilaya Gopuram.
• A stick can be seen at the right side of the entrance of the main door. This stick was used by Ananthaalvar to hit Venkateswara Swamy is present. Once Lord Venkateswara Swamy got hit on the chin, which oozed blood. Since then, the practice of applying sandalwood paste on Swamy’s chin became a practice.
• Lord Balaji's idol wears a huge white mark which covers his eyes.
• It is believed that the main idol of Lord Venkateswara Swamy has real hair. Also, tonsuring and offering hair is one of the most popular vows at the Tirumala hill shrine. The ‘Tirupati’ brand of hair, the shining charcoal black long strides of hair, are sold as hot cake in the fashion markets of Paris and London. The human hair offered to Lord Venkateswara by millions of men and women in 2015 and and e-auctioned by TTD had earned a whopping Rs 810 crore in view of spiraling international prices in the fashion world, reports tirumala.org.
• It is said that the back of Swamy is always wet, no matter how many times it is dried.