'Udayasthamana pooja' in Kerala's Guruvayur temple to be conducted without any change: SC

New Delhi | The Supreme Court on Thursday said the 'Udayasthamana Pooja' in the Guruvayur Sri Krishna temple in Kerala on the occasion of 'ekadashi' shall be conducted on December 1 as per tradition without making any change.

On Guruvayur Ekadasi, the Udayasthamana Pooja is a special, day-long ritual that runs from sunrise to sunset, involving a continuous series of 18 poojas, homam, abhishekam, and other rites.

A bench of Justices J K Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi noted that the ritual was being conducted since 1972.

The apex court asked the parties to complete the pleadings and posted the matter for hearing in March 2026.

The top court had last year slammed the Devaswom administration of Sri Krishna temple in Kerala's Guruvayur for deciding not to conduct the age-old Udayasthamana Pooja on Guruvayur ekadasi citing crowd management and wondered how it could have decided so.

It had also questioned the ‘thantri' (chief priest) for agreeing to change the ritual when he himself, in a news article published in 1996, had admitted that the rituals of the Guruvayur temple were streamlined by none other than Vedic philosopher Adi Shankaracharya himself and no deviation is permissible in that procedure.

Udayasthamana pooja refers to the various worship conducted in temples throughout the day from sunrise (udaya) to sunset (asthamana).

The temple administration had decided not to conduct the ritual on ekadasi, citing difficulties over crowd management and the desire to allow more devotees time for darshan.

The top court was hearing a plea filed by P C Harry and other members of the family with priestly rights in the shrine, contending that ekadashi was the most important festival of the temple and while it was an admitted fact that the age-old Udayasthamana pooja was being conducted since 1972 on ekadashi day, in reality it was being performed from even before.

The petitioners said the rituals were streamlined by Adi Sankaracharya and it was believed any disturbance or deviation would impair the manifestations of the divine force or "Chaitanya".