The Jaya Durga Peetham Temple

The Jaya Durga Peetham Temple is located in Padappai, Chennai suburb. The temple is around 3 km from the Padappai bus terminus. Crossing the Salamangalam bus stop (next bus stop after Padappai towards Oragadam) and going further ahead there is a left turn towards Arambakkam. The temple is half a km away from there on that road.  The Jaya Durga Temple is dedicated to Divine Mother Shakti as Jaya Durga. This is also a temple of Sri Durgai Siddhar who is the founder of this temple.

Rare facts

The temple does not distribute the traditional laddoos or pedhas Prasadam ., Instead they distribute Fastfood. The Jaya Durga Peetham in Chennai offers brownies, burgers, cherry tomato salads and cracker sandwiches. The fast food at the temple is also certified by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India(FSSAI) and products come with an expiry date. The western prasad is not the only thing that the temple offers differently, but the service is also trendy. Visitors have to slip token into the vending machine to collect boxes of their prasadam.

K Sri Sridhar, a herbal oncologist, who was the brains behind the idea said that the new menu has sparked interest among locals as well as tourists. Talking about the American prasadam he said, “The idea was to show that anything that is nutritious and prepared in a clean kitchen with a clean mind can be served to God. It doesn’t have to be only traditional dishes.”

Not only prasad, the temple also delivers cake prasadam to locals on their birthday. They have a computerised register of their birth dates and delivers cake prasadam to people on their birthday. The concept has become a huge hit among elderly devotees who feels special to be treated differently. 81-year-old Subbulakshmi was elated when she received a cake prasadam on her birthday. Times of India quoted Subbulakshmi as saying, “It was so pretty with flowers and icing. And it came with an agar deepam (a traditional oil lamp) instead of candles which was so nice. Just like they light at the temple. When we set up the temple we thought we should give Gods the food we relish.”