Guru Purnima 2017: Agra woman donates two kg gold sandals to Shirdi temple as three-day festival begins

Shirdi: An Agra-based woman devotee on Saturday donated two kg gold ‘paduka’ (sandals) to the Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust (SSST) in Shirdi. [caption id=“attachment_3792295” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The gold paduka worth Rs 60 lakhs donated by Sandhya Gupta from Agra. PTI[/caption] The donation was made by Sandhya Gupta on the occasion of ‘guru pournima’ to be celebrated on Sunday. “The gold sandals donated by Gupta have been ceremoniously installed in Dwarkamai temple,” Sachin Tambe, trustee of SSST told PTI. Gupta said, “Today, I am very happy as the ‘padukas’ donated by me were accepted as ‘guru dakshina’.” Last year in December, a Chhattisgarh-based devotee had donated a gold thali (a dining plate) weighing 1.2 kg to Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust, News18 had reported. This year the temple trust received Rs 9.84 crore in donations in just nine days between 25 December and 2 January, says The Economic Times report. Meanwhile, thousands of devotees from different parts of the country have gathered in Shirdi as the three-day long guru pournima festival began on Saturday. As part of the festival, a procession was taken out. The Saibaba temple has been embellished with flowers and decorative lights.