Tirupati

Tirupati lies below the sacred hills of Tirumala, home to the temple of Venkateswara, a form of Vishnu. The shrine became one of southern India's great places of pilgrimage. Its many inscriptions in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Sanskrit record gifts by successive dynasties. The town below grew around the temple of Govindaraja, consecrated in the twelfth century, while pilgrims continued their ascent to the shrine on the heights.

Tirupati became an important Vaishnava centre in the time of Ramanuja. During the invasions of southern India in the early fourteenth century, the image of Ranganatha from Srirangam was brought here for safekeeping. Vijayanagara rulers bestowed considerable wealth on the temple; inscriptions record gifts from Krishnadevaraya, Achyuta Raya and their successors. In the fifteenth century the poet Annamacharya sang of Tirupati's sacred hills, streams and trees in Telugu.