Ahobalam

Ahobalam is a sacred place among the hills and gorges of the Eastern Ghats, devoted to Narasimha, the lion-headed form of Vishnu. Lower Ahobilam has a temple complex beside the village; farther east, the shrines of Upper Ahobilam stand in a steep gorge. The Tamil poet-saint Thirumangai Alvar praised the place in the ninth century, and it became one of the revered Divya Desams.

The Kakatiya and Reddi dynasties endowed its shrines, followed by the rulers of the Vijayanagara kingdom. Krishnadevaraya visited and patronised them in the sixteenth century, and the monastic institution of the Ahobila Matha also arose here. In 1579 Murahari Rao, a commander of the Golconda Sultanate, raided the temple and carried its jewelled image to the sultan.