Tribal festival 'Medaram Maha Jathara' concludes in Telangana, lakhs offer prayers

The four-day Maha Jathara Grand festival of tribal goddesses Sammakka and Saralamma in this district, attended by lakhs of devotees, concluded on Saturday. Tribal goddesses Sammakka and Saralamma returned to the forests as per the custom at 7.55 PM on Saturday marking the end of the Maha Jathara, amid religious chants of thousands of devotees.

The four-day 'Maha Jathara' (Grand festival) of tribal goddesses Sammakka and Saralamma in this district, attended by lakhs of devotees, concluded on Saturday. Devotees from Telangana and neighbouring Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha offered prayers during the biennial mega tribal festival held at Medaram, officials said. Tribal goddesses Sammakka and Saralamma ''returned to the forests'' as per the custom at 7.55 PM on Saturday marking the end of the 'Maha Jathara', amid religious chants of thousands of devotees. The Adivasi priests also took other deities, Pagididdaraju and Govindaraju, to their respective abodes as per the customs. The 'Maha Jathara', often hailed as the largest tribal festival in Asia, began on January 28 with the deities being installed at the 'gaddelu' (altar) at Medaram. An estimated 80 lakh devotees visited the 'Maha Jathara' on January 28 and 29, state Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy had said. Thousands of devotees took holy dip in the rivulet Jampanna Vagu at Medaram. They offered jaggery equal to their weight to the goddesses as per tradition. Telangana Governor Jishnu Dev Varma, Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram, Union Coal Minister G Kishan Reddy, former Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya, several state ministers, MLAs, judges, British Deputy High Commissioner to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Gareth Wynn Owen and bureaucrats offered prayers to the deities. Several devotees alleged that adequate number of public transport buses were not available.The Telangana government made elaborate arrangements for the mega festival. Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy inaugurated the renovated shrine of Sammakka and Saralamma on January 19. The government reconstructed the altars of the deities Sammakka, Saralamma, Govindaraju, and Pagididda Raju at a cost of about Rs 101 crore. Additional development works worth Rs 150 crore were undertaken to improve facilities for devotees attending the 2026 festival. About 21 government departments and 42,000 personnel were involved in managing the event by way of crowd control, security, cleanliness, medical services, and other arrangements. Medical camps, ambulances, and bike ambulances were deployed to handle emergencies. The 'Maha Jathara' is celebrated in Medaram, located in the remote Eturnagaram Wildlife Sanctuary, part of the Dandakaranya forest belt. The festival commemorates the revolt led by the mother-daughter duo, Sammakka and Saralamma, against the imposition of taxes on the tribal populace during a drought by the Kakatiya rulers in the 12th century.

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