Simhachalam

One of the best places of Narasimha worship is found in the crowded town of Vishakapatnam, actually 9 km away from it, on top of the mountain range. Those mountain area lead right up to the ocean and it is said from the puranas, that it was here that Hiranyakashipu ordered his men to trow his own son sri Prahlada from this mountain to be crushed. But as we know he was saved by Lord Narayana and Prahlad in great greatitude built a special shrine for this. Its special feature to be a Varaha Narasimha combined Murthy, as his face is a Boar, having human torso and having a tail is so unique nowhere found except here. Also his padas are covered and not seen in his original form. And only once a year this Murthy is giving Darshan in his Nija Rupa, as the rest of the year his is totally covered with Sandelwood powder.
I have visited this shrine the first time in spring 1995 and only 17 years later i had come back here and i was very happy to see not much change has creaped in that holy town of Simhachalam. It is still remote, the temple is faily mantained, every day is a beautiful marriage performed for Him, only the pilgrims have increased dramatically. My main purpose apart of taking Darshan of the Lord was to study and digitalize the 32 forms of Lord Narasimha given in the inner prakaram as carvings for book to come out.

To get the special permits and a proper guidance was due to the blessings of Sri Chinnajeeyar Swamy and his devotees like Narayana Reddy, were i could stay over night and get all the good contacts from.

We started early and had a wonderful darshan, of the egglike sandelwood form of Lord Narasimha, was welcomed by HG Sitaramagalu Swamy one of the oldest and best pancaratric Gurus in south india. Wellknown for his scholarship in agamas i had a wonderful interview with him on different subjects on Narasimha worship in Simhachalam.

He showed me the Simhachalam Mahatmiya which describe the 32 forms of Lord with each special feature. Unfortunate in the years of the 17th century the temple was almost destroyed by the mleecha muslim invaders and some of the carvings are not complete anymore. Still we could make out most of them with the guidance of HG Sitaramagalu Swamy.