Narasiṃha Temple in Ahobilam

12.08.2017

Blog

Most likely, the lion was a totemic deity of local tribes, and the temple itself was built much later. The temple is located in the Nallamala hills, in southeastern India, in the state Andhra Pradesh, India. For a long time, the aboriginal Chenchu people, hunter-gatherers, have lived in this area. The Chenchu visit the Narasiṃha temple in large numbers. They sacrifice animals and birds to the deity. The worship of the lion-man, known to us today as the Hindu deity Narasiṃha, began in antiquity. The man-lion was a tribal, possibly totem deity of some tribes. Much later, he was worshiped as Narasiṃha, an avatāra of Viṣṇu.

According to the inscriptions carved on the walls of the temple, it is possible to trace the history of the temple only until the 14th century. Prolaya Vema Reddy, the founder of the kingdom of Reddy Kondavidu (the eastern part of today’s Andhra Pradesh) built the steps to the temple. Prolaya Vema lived in 1325–1353. At this time, the temple was already a center of pilgrimage. The temple was later maintained by the Vijayanagara kings.

In 1385–1386 Vijayanagara king Harihara II son of Bukkaraya built a portico (mukhamaṇḍapa) in front of the entrance to the temple. In 1516, the Vijayanagara king Krishnadevaraya visited the temple during a military campaign against the Gajapati king, who ruled Kalinga (Orissa). As a gift to the deity, Krishnadevaraya offered a garland with diamond pendants; rubies and emeralds, as well as a pair of bracelets inlaid with rubies; golden tray. Both king’s wives Chinnadevi and Tirumaladevi gave the pendant directly.

The court poet Allasani Peddana, one of the eight court poets of Krishnadevaraya, was a student of Satagopa Yati of the temple’s Narasiṃha Maṭha. It was at this time that Vaiṣṇavism, and with it Ahobilam, flourished.

In 1578, the armies of Shah Ibrahim Qutba destroyed the temple of Narasiṃha. The temple and the surrounding area were under Muslim occupation for several years. According to tradition, the attack and destruction of the temple, on the orders of the Shah, was carried out by the Hindu Maratha commander Muraharirao. He delivered the idol of Narasiṃha to the Shah. Seeing the deity, the Shah choked on his own vomit with blood and died. According to tradition, it is believed that Narasiṃha punished the Shah for the destruction of the temple.

The Shah’s brother Jamshid killed his father, the Sultan of Golconda (part of Andhra Pradesh) and the founder of the Qutb Shah dynasty. The father was a Turkmen who once lived in Persia. After his father, Jamshid decided to kill all the brothers, but Ibrahim managed to escape. He fled to Vijayanagara, where he lived for seven years (1543–1550) as an honored guest of the ruler of Vijayanagara, Ramarayi Aravidu. In Vijayanagara, Ibrahim was imbued with Hindu culture. He not only lived as a Hindu, but also took the Hindu names Malkabhirama and Vibhuramvaru, and also married a Hindu woman according to the local custom. In 1550, Jamshid died and Ibrahim returned to Golconda, becoming a sultan. As the ruler of Golconda, Ibrahim patronized the Hindus, their culture and art.

In 1564, in alliance with Sultan Nizam Shah, Sultan Ibrahim Qutb invaded Vijayanagara. The campaign was unsuccessful. A year later, in 1565, in alliance with several sultans, Ibrahim again attacked his savior, Ramarayi Aravida. The hordes destroyed Vijayanagara. In 1580, a few months after the destruction of the Narasiṃha temple in Ahobilam, Sultan Ibrahim Qutb died. We know the traditional interpretation of his death…

After a while, with the assistance of the king of Srirangaraya, the area was liberated from the Muslims, and the Narasiṃha temple was reconstructed. The worship continued. True, it is not entirely clear where the deity was kept during the occupation, when and who returned it to the temple when. Really returned?