All way to Lord Narsimha Adobe - Ahobilam

Guide to Ahobilam

Ahobilam is located in Allagadda mandal of Kurnool District, Andhra Pradesh. It is located at distance of 150 km from Kurnool towards its south and is part of Nallamala Hill range in Andhra Pradesh, apart from being a pilgrim centre, the other chief attraction of Ahobilam is adventure trekking to the 9 Narasimha temples located in the thick forests of the surrounding hills and that was our target to cover.

According to history, Ahobilam is the place where Lord Narasimha blessed Prahalada and killed Hiranyakashipu.

Ahobilam means great strength which was shown by half-lion, half-man Lord Vishnu who is in Narasimha Avatar. 

Ahobilam can be broadly classified into two regions: Upper and Lower Ahobilam

Our group in office were discussing something seriously and out of blue suddenly I came with an idea to travel Ahobilam. I personally thank my friends(Rohit, Somu, Adi, Maggi(Adi’s Wife), Gupta and Deepak) who are part of this wonderful trip. Ahobilam is generally a famous pilgrim center, but it will be liked by trekkers and travel enthusiasts as well.

This is how it started:

Finally the day was arrived and we all friends reached MGBS, Hyderabad by 9pm and boarded our bus to Allagadda. We have reached the destination next day early morning by 4:30am and we are able to get the first bus to Ahobilam which is at a distance of 20 km. By the time, we reached Ahobilam our guide Pawan <<can share number if needed>> was ready and he guided us to guest house which i have booked already.

Trek in Upper Ahobilam:

We started our trip to Upper Ahobilam in an auto and reached one of the 9 Narshima temples in the thick forest. We started our trek to Ugra Stambam (a huge rock which is believed to be the pillar from where Lord Narasimha emerged).  We borrowed some sticks from local people so that we can trek it easily as there is no proper way to reach the destination. Photos in the blog can explain how difficult it will be without sticks

The Nava Narasimha temples or the 9 temples are:

1. Ahobila Narasimha, the main temple located at Upper Ahobilam

2. Karanja Narasimha, located on the way to Upper Ahobilam

3. Malola Narasimha, can only be reached by a 2 km trek from Upper Ahobilam Temple

4. Kroda Narasimha, also called Varaha Narasimha Temple, half a kilometer trek from Upper Ahobilam Temple, on the way to Malola Narasimha

5. Pavana Narasimha, 7 km trek (one way) from Upper Ahobilam temple

6. Jwala Narasimha, 5 km trek from Upper Ahobilam temple

7. Bhargava Narasimha, Lower Ahobilam, reachable by road

8. Chatravata Narasimha, Lower Ahobilam, accessible by road

9. Yogananda Narasimha, Lower Ahobilam, road access.

We started our trek at Ahobila Narasimha temple and our final destination was to reach Ugra Stambam which is 7 km trek before we exhaust ourselves. In the mid-way we skipped our darshan at Kroda Narsimha temple and travelled through thin and narrow paths to reach Jwala Narsimha temple which is also called as gateway to Hiranyakashipu kingdom. This is place where Lord Narsimha killed Hiranyakashipu. There is a small kund over there which is also called as Rakth Kund and it is believed that lord narsimha has washed his hands after killing the demon Hiranyakasyup. As we have forgot to carry water bottles with us, we had water from that kund which is so pure and clean.

Below Pic show the path to Ugra Stambham:

Now we have started our trek to Ugra Stambam which is 3 km from this place and most of the crowd (95% of them) returns from Jwala Narsimha temple as they feel its risk to travel or may be because they are already exhausted. We started our trip with the help of our sticks and reached Ugra Stambam after 2 hours struggle. Once you reach the Ugra Stambam you will entirely forget the pain which you had to reach this local. It was just so awesome and mesmerizing. The thin cold breeze which touches your face makes you feel happier. We had short break over there for 15 minutes and started our return way. It was bit tough to reach again to Jwala Narsimha as you don’t have proper path to walk and offcourse you need to walk all the way on huge rocks. Finally we reached Rakh kund again and had small intake of water. Couple of my groupmates also needed medical attention including me, so we had a small medical need in Jwala Narsimha Temple. Thank god I carried all the pain killers and sprays with me.

As we reached our final target we have relaxed ourselves and started our trek towards Malola Narishma temple which is at distance of 2 km from Jwala Narsimha and after our darshan over there we moved towards Prahalada Guhhalu, that’s the place where Prahalada has studied in his childhood.

Finally we reached our last but one temple Kroda Narishima, temple in Upper Ahobilam and reached the starting point Ahobila Narsimha swamy abode after 6 hours of complete trek. Here we had our darshan and you have a small lake here, where devotees are offering their hair and having a holy bath. We are so exhausted and feeling hungry, so just went directly to Arya Samaj Annadana Satram and had our lunch. On the way to lower ahobilam we have visited Karanja Narsimha temple which is on road side. With this we completed our trek and exploration of Upper Ahobilam.

Trip in Lower Ahobilam:

As you know we have already covered 5 out of 9 Narsimha temples in Upper Ahobilam, to cover the rest I have booked a jeep and they quote bit high if we need to cover Pavana Narsimha temple which is accessible through off-road. We started our Lower Ahobhilam trip by visiting Yogananda narsimha temple which is 7 km from Ahobilam and on the return we have visited Chatravata Narsimha temple. Basically this 2 temples fall on one way and for last Bhargava temple you need to take another way for which you need to come Ahobilam again and visited the place in another 40 minutes and completed our trip by visiting.

Please reach to me, if you want to explore this place.