Ahobilam – The land of Nava Narasimha Swamy Temples:
A small village nestled amongst nallmalla hills near Kurnool in Andhrapradesh about 380 kilometers from Hyderabad. Ahobilam is the place where Lord Narasimha ( avatar of Vishnu) killed Hiranyakasipu and saved his son prahalada. Aho means great and Balam means strength. Ahobilam consists of 9 narasimha temples of which 5 are in caves situated in deep forests and needs good amount of trekking. Ahobilam is divided into lower Ahobilam and the upper Ahobilam. Upper Ahobilam is about 8 km away from lower Ahobilam.
Trip details:
Dates: July13 – July15
Route taken: Hyderabad – Kurnool – nandyal – Allagada – Ahobilam
Distance : ~ 380 kms.
Members: Myself, wife and 3 year old daughter.
We have heard about this place from my parents but even after been in Hyderabad for 5 years never got a chance to visit this holy place. Sometime in May my in laws visited us we went for a trip to Srisailam and Mahanandi. During the return, the taxi driver suggested about Ahobilam and not very far and we should see. We visited Ahbilam and we were really spell bound. But we were able to visit only 6/9 narasimha temples as we had very less time, but we promised we would come back. July 2nd week, both of us were having lean periods with respect to work and on July 12th we decided to vist Ahobilam on that weekend. First thing was to check if there are any rooms available in APTDC. Checked online the status said no rooms were available. Luckily I had saved the phone number of the guide who took us around when we had gone in May and called him and requested him to go to APTDC and see if he can book the rooms for the weekend. I was planning to leave on Friday afternoon and was looking for staying up to Sunday evening. He called me back after an hour confirming that room is available only till Sunday morning 8 am. I asked him to book it which he gladly did. Next was to call my regular travels guy “Sri venkateshwara travels, nizampet road” and told him about the plan and asked for a indica as we were only 2 adults. I was not willing to drive my car as it would be really tiresome and will be too taxing for the trekking the next day. He gladly accepted. The plan was to leave Hyderabad at 1 pm and reach Ahobilam by 7 pm.
We were able to start from our home only at around 2.30 pm. We hit the ORR by around 3.15 after filling the Indica’s tank with diesel. The drive till Kurnool was without any events and we reached the last tollgate before Kurnool at around 5.15 pm and stopped by baba ramdev hotel. Not a great place. We had chai and we wasted about 20 minutes. Then the nightmare started we exited the NH7 and went in to the Kurnool town and got stuck in the big jam. Driver was not aware of a bypass to avoid going through the town and we wasted close to 40 mins in going from NH7 to nandyal Road. Traffic was also very high.
Kurnool – Nandyal – Cuddapah road is being widened to a 4 lane highway and hence a lot of constructions are happening and one has to be very careful from moving from completed sections to the old highway sections. The road condition between Nandyal and Kurnool was very bad at most places and heavy traffic meant we were going 30 – 45 kmph speeds most of the time. We reached nandyal by 7.50 pm stopped for another quick chai break.
Nandyal – Allagada was much better with longer stretches of completed one side sections. Driver was aware of the turn that we need to take for Ahobilam from Allagada. Look out for the 1st board which says “ Allagedda” and you will be seeing 2 big warehouses on both sides of the road and on to your left you will see a small board which says indian oil petrol pump 10 kms. Take that left. This saves you the pain of going through the allagada town and saves about 10 kms of distance as well. From here the road is a beauty even though it’s a sigle lane but well maintained one and we faced no traffic and we reached the Lower Ahobilam APTDC hotel at 8.50 pm.
APTDC is the best option anywhere you go in AP. Well maintained rooms, clean and at reasonable cost. Ahobilam APTDC is a new one with only about 10 rooms with a good secured parking place. We got an AC room for 1100 + taxes. The guide was waiting for us and checked if we need anything to Eat. No good restaurants or eating places except for an Udipi hotel which also had only chappathi for the night. Luckily wife had packed Curd rice for my daughter and all of us shared the same and slept for the night. Guide had asked to be ready by 6.30 am so that we can cover all the nine Narasimhas on Saturday itself.
When you enter lower Ahobilam, the road kind of splits into two. The straight one leads to upper Ahobilam and the one to the right leads to the main temple of lower Ahobilam. Lower Ahobilam consisted of the temple, shops surrounding the temple, a few homes and a few guest houses. I would say only APTDC guest house is good remaining all are not that great. We woke up by 5.30am and got ready and went to the lower Ahobilam temple by 6.30 am. The temple was opened only by 7.15 and we had the vishwaroopa darshan of Prahlada Varada i.e., the Lord whose grace bestows on Prahlada. With Vijayanagar style noticeable in the structure, there are a number of mandapas outside the temple. We then came out of the temple and guide took us to the only decent eatery called “Raghavendra Brahmins hotel” and we had good idly, pongal and vada with filter coffee.
Then the discussions started with the guide about completing the Nava narsimha darshan. Let me describe about the temples little here before going in to the reason for discussions. The Nine Narasimhasthalas are: - 1. Jwala Narasimha 2. Ahobila Narasimha 3. Malola Narasimha 4. Kroda Narasimha 5. Karanja Narasimha 6. Bhargava Narasimha 7. Yogananda Narasimha 8. Kshatravata Narasimha and 9. Pavana or Narasimha. Then, we have Ugra Stambam, which is a column of rock. This rock itself is considered Lord Nrisimha. The eleventh one is called Prahlada Padi. These eleven are in the hills in one sense or another. One has to first drive to upper ahobilam which is about 8 kms from lowere ahobilam by road and then start trekking in to forests to visit most of the narasimhas. Starting point is the Ahobila narasimha at upper ahobilam from where one route takes you to jwala narasimha for about 4 hour trek through rocks, waterfalls and hard climbing through steps and which would also finish Kroda and malola narasimha in this loop and come back to the starting point. Then one needs to walk in the opposite direction for another trek through 250 steep steps and 4 -5 kms trek through mountains to see the Pavana narasimha and walk back the same route back to upper ahobilam. This would complete 5 temples. 3 other temples Kranja, Yoga and chatravada narasimhaas are on Road between Lower and Upper ahobilam. Finally bharagava Narasimha temple which is about 2 kms from Lower Ahobilam on foot but on plain grounds, but no paved roads.
Let me come back to the reason for the discussions. Last time we had gone for the trek up to jwala and we did not visit pavana, Kranja, bharagava and chatrvada. Initial plan was to trek to jwala and finish the temples on road on Saturday and then complete Pavana and bhargava by trekking on Sunday. But since APTDC had asked us to vacate Sunday morning and we were with my daughter the guide proposed we should finish the jwala circuit by trekking and go on an Offroading trip in jeeps to pavana and bhargava to complete all in a day. My wife was little upset because she wanted to visit all by trekking and not use jeeps at all. After some persuasion she reluctantnly said “ fine” after confirming next time when we come we will do it in 2 days in a leisurely way.
Thus we started our journey to upper ahobilam by around 8.15 and road is fantastic to Upper ahobilam. Fully covered with tall trees and a small ghat section and it was drizzling, the atmosphere was beautiful. We reached the upper ahobilam. Upper Ahobilam has few Annasathirams which provide free meals and one shop which sells cooldrinks, water bottles. From here the trekking starts. Try to be as light as possible with just water and glucose and some snacks otherwise trek will be very difficult. Might be very easy for folks who go for regular trekking, but pot bellies like me find it tough. We climbed through some 30 steps and reached the Ahobila Narasimha temple. Being a Saturday and an Ekadasi day crowds were not that high but lot of people had congregated from nearby villages to give bali ( Animal sacrifice for narasimha swamy, it is allowed only on Saturdays and only in specific areas) we went to the temple and the swamy is inside a cave. We had good darshan and also little bit of puranam about the swamy and came out.
“AHOBILA NARASIMHA SWAMY
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The Lord here appears in his fierce aspect, called Ugra Narasimha, who is the presiding deity of the temple and is known as Ahobila Nrisimha Swamy. It is firmly believed the Lord Narasimha was 'Svayambhu' (self-manifest) here.”
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Then the trek starts in to the jungle. You start walking through some walkway bridges through rocky terrain and within 10 minutes reached the Kroda narasimha temple. On the way you see streams flowing and people taking baths and cooking. You also see a big mandapam which used to be a veda patashala in early days but now in a terrible state.
“ KRODAKARA (VARAHA) NARASIMHA SWAMY
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The temple of this Lord is one kilometre away from the main temple of Ahobila Nrisimha Swamy on the Upper Ahobilam. The image of the deity has the face of a boar (varaha or kroda) and the Lord is seen along with his Consort, Lakshmi. Hence the Lord of the temple is known as Krodakara (Varaha) Narasimha Swamy here”
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We finished darshan and started walking. My daughter was insisting that she will walk but with the slippery surface and rocky path me and my wife shared the lifting of her and continued the walk. The streams were not that full and the guide mentioned that Rains are not that great this year. But still the greenery was very good and trek also becomes tough in this stretch. After walking for another hour we come to a big bridge from where steps are constructed for the remaining path. These bridges and steps were constructed by TVS group to make trek easier. At the bridge the trek bifurcates, left goes to the jwala and right will take you malola. We started walking towards Jwala narasimha. We also get a very good view of ugara stambham where the actual vadham (killing of Hiranyakasipu had happened). The guide was explaining the puranams and made the trek interesting. Finally we reached a point there was a small waterfall through which we have to walk to reach the Jwala narasimha cave. At this juncture there is the diversion to the ugra stambham which from this point would be another 2 hour tough trek. We said next time we would cover that as well and we walked to the Jwala narasimha cave. Once we reached there we saw there was no pujari. There was a lady who was giving panagam a sweet drink made out of jaggery to everyone. We enquired about when the pujari would come and she said he must be on his way and should be there soon. On all Saturdays the pujari’s trek to all the temples inside the forest otherwise they remain locked. We waited and my wife and another pilgrim started chanting Vishnu sahasranamam. Me and my daughter were sitting and listening to them. Soon the pujari came and started doing the pooja and gave the prasadam to us. We should salute these staunch vaishnavites.
“JWALA NARASIMHA SWAMY
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The temple of Jwala Nrisimha Swamy, lies higher up the above temple, on a hill called, 'Achalachaya Meru'. This is about four kilometres from the Upper Ahobilam temple. This place is said to be the actual spot, where the fierce anger of the Lord reached its culmination when he tore Hiranyakasipu.”
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We started walking back the steps that we climbed and reached the bridge and took other way towards malola. The stretch is very tough with steep steps and then very narrow stretches. The views were very beautiful. Snaps are not that great and that many because we were carrying our daughter and somehow settings had changed and I did not see that till I reached malola narasimha temple. Here again we had good darshan with some small puranam of the deity by the priest. Being with the guide was also helpful, he goes few minutes before us to the temples and tell the pujari’s to give us a good darshan and tell the puranam of the deity.
MALOLANARASIMHA SWAMY
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Nearly two kilometres from the main temple of Upper Ahobilam, is the famous shrine of Malola Narasimha Swamy. The deity here appears in 'soumya' (graceful) form. As Lord Narasimha is seen with his consort, Lakshmi, He is known as Malola Narasimha Swamy. The word 'Malola' means beloved to Lakshmi (Ma=Lakshmi, Lola= beloved).”
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We took some rest here and my daughter was feeling hungry and we gave her bread that we had. Unfortunately the entire route is full of monkeys and one of them snatched the bread from my daughter in a split second which led to my daughter crying for some time. We had to cajole her and then we were laughing about it. All narasimha temple routes I guess are infested with monkeys. Sholingar also I had faced similar problem. After spending we started our trek back to UPPER Ahobilam. On the way we saw the route to go to pavana narasimha temple and I thanked the guide that we decided to go by jeeps which I regretted at the end of the day. That part is later why I did so.
We reached back by 11.45 am and went straight to the Brahmins anna sathram and had excellent lunch. I am not sure whether the trek or tiredness or the divines, the food is amazing eventhough it is very simple consisting rice sambhar rasam payasam and buttermilk. My wife was amazed at the rate and amount of my palette. We finished the lunch donated money to the trust that runs the sathram and drove back to our hotel. On the way we stopped by the Kranja narasimha temple and finished the darshan.
KARANJA NARASIMHA SWAMY
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This shrine is situated at a distance of one kilometre from the Upper Ahobilam and one furlong from the road leading to Lower Ahobilam. The image of the deity is installed under a tree, called 'Karanja Vruksham'. Hence this Lord is called Karanja Narasimha Swamy”
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We reached the hotel and refreshed and then went to book a jeep. The rates are fixed as 1850 for all the remaining 4 temples of which 2 are truly off-roading through jungles. We had the option of sharing the jeep with few others but I booked the entire cab for us. We were just 3, myself, wife, daughter and the guide. I was surprised when the jeep driver called few of his associates to jump on to the jeep saying we will be too light and need the extra weight to go through the roads. I never fully understood the reason but few minutes in to the trail understood the reason behind it. The jeep was an old Mahindra not sure about the make.
Then the ride started through some rocky paths initially soon detoriated to mud slushy terrain. The speed with which the driver was driving the jeep was really scary but he seemed to be in total control. This was my first experience with off roading, I did not really enjoy it very much, actually was scared most of the times. It was total forest and guide also mentioned that it is full of Sandalwood trees. Suddenly many thoughts flashed on to my mind, what will happen if we get stuck. My daughter was literally shouting us to get out of the jeep. After an hour we reached the Pavana Narasimha temple. I would definitely recommend the jeep trip to experience the Offroading experience but certainly would trek next time to enjoy the nature's beauty. If you want to say the jeep experience in Vadivel’s terminology “ Allu kazhandidichu”.
The temple’s location was fantastic. Beautiful views. Many people from local villagees come to this temple on Saturdays to give Animal sacrifice and hence we saw lot of huts where they can cook.
As usual we went inside and had good darshan of the swami and the priest explained the puranam. We spent close to 20 mins as there was no rush.
PAVANA NARASIMHA SWAMY
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Nearby the above temple, is the shrine of Pavana Narasimha, on the banks of the river, Pavana and it is about six kilometres from the Upper Ahobilam temple. Hence the Lord of the shrine is known as Pavana Narasimha Swamy.”
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Then the return journey started through the same way and again after another hour reached the Yoga Narasimha temple in Lower Ahobilam situated off the road. Finished darshan quickly.
YOGANANDA NARASIMHA SWAMY
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This temple is to the south-east of Lower Ahobilam at a distance of 2 kilometres. The popular legend is that after killing Hiranyakasipu, Lord Narasimha taught Prahlada several yogic postures. Therefore, the Lord in this aspect is called Yogananda Narasimha.”
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Then went quickly to the chatarvata swamy temple which is about ½ a kilometer from the yoganarasimha temple.
CHATRAVATA NARASIMHA SWAMY
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About three kilometres from lower Ahobilam, the image of the deity is installed under a peepal tree, surrounded by thorny bushes. Hence, the Lord is called as Chatravata Narasimha Swamy.”
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Quickly finished the darshan and came out and started towards the final narasimha temple – bhargava Narasimha yemple which is also an offroad but just 2 kilometers in to the forest. The temple is located above a hillock with about 100 steps. After the whole day I was dead tired but the scenary was very beautiful so we climbed up. Unfortunately there was no priest but we had good darshan of the deity through the gate.
BHARGAVA NARASIMHA SWAMY
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The Bhargava Narasimha Swamy is situated at a distance of two kilometres from the Lower Ahobilam, on a hill, near the sacred pond, known as 'Bhargava Theertham', where Bhargava Rama performed his penance. Hence the Lord of the temple is known as Bhargava Narasimha Swamy.”
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We moved back to our hotel completely drained. I paid the jeep driver more than we had agreed upon. I truly appreciated their skills in driving through these forests. We also thanked the guide and paid him for his services.
Guide fees: 800 Rs.
Took some rest and then went to same hotel that we had the breakfast and we had awesome pongal and chappthi’s. went to bed quickly as the next day we had to vacate early morning.
Next morning we got up by 6 am got our stuff packed finished our morning chores and left by 7.30 am and reached back to Hyderabad by 1.30 pm to our house.
Ahobilam should be done in a leisurely pace in 2 days. The place is beautiful and trek refreshes you very much. We would go back again sometime to complete the trek to all the temples.
Please forgive me for adding snaps all at one shot and not giving headings and also the quality of the snaps may not be great.
1st August 2012, 16:38
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Thanks
. We could not cover as much as you guys have but we did have a good one. I would start drafting the travellogue now.