The sacred portals of the Kedarnath and Yamunotri located in the high Garhwal Himalayan region of Uttarakhand were closed for winter on Thursday.
\nSources in the Badrinath Kedarnath Temple Committee said the doors of the temple were closed for the devotees at 8.30 am after offering prayers amid chanting of vedic hymns.
\nMore than 3,000 devotees along with temple committee president Ajendra Ajay, teerth purohit and officials of the Rudraprayag district administration were present on the occasion, while the Indian Army’s 11th Maratha Regiment played devotional tunes.
\nOver 43 lakh pilgrims reached Chardham this year. In Kedarnath alone, 15,61,882 devotees paid obeisance at the temple.
\nThe media in-charge of the temple committee, Dr. Harish Gaur said the Kedarnath temple opened its portals at 3 am and the process of closing the doors for the winter started at 4 am.
\nThe sanctum sanctorum and the main gate of the temple were closed after temple priest T. Gangadhar Linga covered the ‘jyotirlinga’ with Baghambar, Bhringraj flower, Bhasma, local dry flowers and leaves and the \u2018panchmukhi doli\u2019 of Lord Shankar left for the Omkareshwar temple of Ukhimath.
\nThe doors of Yamunotri dham located in Uttarkashi district were also closed for the winter on Thursday.
\nSuresh Uniyal, secretary of Yamunotri Temple Committee said the doors of Yamunotri dham was closed at 12:09 pm after performing rituals
\nAccording to Uniyal, more than 2,000 devotees were present on the occasion and they also performed Tandi dance (folk dance of Uttarakhand) on the drum beat.
\nThe \u2018doli\u2019 of goddess Yamuna was taken from the dham and set up in Kharsali village where devotees will be able to pay obeisance to the goddess for the next six months.
\nUttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami thanked the pilgrims and said a record number of pilgrims reached Chardham Yatra this time.
\nThe new Kedarpuri has come into existence under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi where facilities are being provided to the pilgrims, he said.
\nDhami said recently the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of the Gaurikund-Kedarnath Ropeway and its construction will make Kedarnath Yatra easier.
\nThe doors of Gangotri dham, one of the famous temples of the Garhwal Himalayas known as Chardham, were closed on Wednesday for the winter season on the occasion of Annakoot festival.
\nThe doors of Yamunotri will also be closed on Thursday, while the doors of Badrinath will be closed on November 19.
\nThe four Himalayan temples of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri located in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand are closed for six months every year for the winters when they remain snowbound.
\nLakhs of devotees visit every year for the Chardham Yatra, which is considered to be the economic backbone of the Garhwal region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The sacred portals of the Kedarnath and Yamunotri located in the high Garhwal Himalayan region of Uttarakhand were closed for winter on Thursday. Sources in the Badrinath Kedarnath Temple Committee said the doors of the temple were closed for the devotees at 8.30 am after offering prayers amid chanting of vedic hymns. More than 3,000 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-latest-news","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2505,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions\/2505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}