The new Yadadri temple with its sculptural extravaganza
of "gopurams", corridors, pillars and the
many statues of the most holy divine gods creates an
atmosphere of the very real heaven “Vaikunta” of Lord Vishnu that
exists in the clouds. The holy Yadadri is about 60 kilometers from
Hyderabad. The Lord Narasimha legend is very popular throughout India
since centuries as mythology (the highly poetic “Puranas”) declare
that Lord Narasimha is one of the ten incarnations of god almighty of universe
appearing on the planet earth to eliminate extremely evil persons who are
unconquerable by human effort. There are two important
temples(simple temples in rural surroundings) devoted to worship of Lord
Narasimha and which are a few kilometers away from the most dazzling
Yadadri temple on Yadagirigutta.
One of the temples is on a forested hill at Venkatapuram a small
village a few kilometers away from Yadadri. The temple has indescribable wild
beauty with vast bushes and numberless caves. Real lions and tigers might have
lived there for thousands of years when it was all a deep impassable forest.
But first learn about the most beautiful legend. The angry god
after killing the wicked king Hiranyakashipu was burning with anger in
his heart and roamed the forests to control his anger. The lion god
started to live on the Venkatapuram hill . It was a place with an environment
suited to get out from his angry moods .At that time the great sage Yada Maharishi(son
of a great hermit/saint of Ramayana era) was doing penance in the forests
of that hill. He was a most compassionate sage like Lord Buddha always worried
about welfare of poor ,innocent and toiling masses .He saw into
the future through his magical vision and realized
that it is not safe for the world to let the Lord of
the Universe continue in such angry mood .So the hermit
prayed to Lord Narasimha for hundreds of years to make his humble
appeal. The great god, ever so kind and sweet tempered, appeared before Yada
Maharishi and asked him what he wanted. Lord Narasimha was at heart
as simple and loving as a child .The sage represented to
the lion-god that the devotees were frightened to worship him
in those fearful mountain caves and urged him to calm down and come away to a
serene place and change to an approachable kind form to enable the
simple rural people to pray to him daily at his temple. The god agreed to
move to a pleasant calm rural place near Yadagirigutta but insisted
that he would retain within himself “ five special mighty forms”--- to
use them in case of need when bad people threaten the earth.
The new place to which he came is in an area of low
hills and is on outskirts of present Yadadri town and is called
“Patha Gutta”( Old hill temple).It was the holy place where the lord
resided for hundreds of years till he moved to the heights of
Yadagirigutta (Yadadri). Thousands of people are still attracted to
this old temple which is situated on a long and very low ground-level hillock
amidst thick green vegetation. This place is also extremely beautiful in calm
rural surroundings amidst trees and numberless ground level boulders. It is at
a far end of the present Yadagirigutta town
Much later after a few hundred years Lord Narasimha instructed
Lord Hanuman( his devoted disciple, sage and philosopher) to tell Yada Maharshi
that he had chosen still another holy spot at the foot of the
present Yadadri hill to reside . The Lord chose this place because he wanted to
provide his queen the great goddess Laxmi ( goddess of wealth) a
beautiful abode. Yaada Maharishi too lived in nearby forests doing
penance and worshipped the god and goddess for hundreds of years with great
devotion. In course of time Yada Maharishi passed away and reached god’ s
heaven. Thousands of people of villages and towns near and far visited the
temple and worshipped at this most holy place for hundreds of years.
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