History
Ask any Tamilian about his opinion on Tirupati! Chances are he would sigh, shake his head and tell you that Tirupati should have belonged to Tamil Nadu instead of Andhra Pradesh.
As a born Andhrite, I’d of course beg to differ. However I do feel that Tirupati is closer to Tamil Nadu in terms of language, culture and the general way of life than it is to Andhra Pradesh. Also SilappadikAraM mentions a vaDa vEMkaTaM guarding the northern boundary of the Tamil land. That should be Tirupati. (SilappadhikAraM dates back to 4-6 AD) However there is another theory that suggests the possibility of this temple being a Sakti temple originally. Sri Ramanuja Charya supposedly converted the Sakti shrine into a Venkateswara Swamy temple in the 15th century. And then Sri Krishna Deva Raya renovated it.
There is a lot of evidence to back up this theory. The vigrahaM in the temple has long hair. The carvings on the garbha guDi consist mainly of lions, tigers and other Sakti related animals.
Well, if the temple was a Sakti shrine indeed, how come SilappadhikAraM talks about the vaDa vEMkaTaM? Of course! The most logical explanation is something a fifth grader would come up with. Originally there was a Venkateswara Swamy temple. Then someone had demolished it to construct a Sakti temple in the same place. Then in the fifteenth century, yet another conversion took place.
The whole thing is just a hypothesis. No one knows for sure what exactly is the history of Tirupati/Tirumala. There is one more theory, which states that there was a very auspicious day in history for opening the temple. If the temple was opened on that day, the God would become world famous. However the sculptors could not make ready the vigrahaM of Lord Venkateswara in time. So they used an existing Sakti vigrahaM dressed like Venkateswara Swamy and went ahead with the pratishTApana
I had roamed on the roads of this great pilgrim city for four years during my engineering. Here is my perception of Tirupati.
Geographics:
Tirupati is the southern most city of Andhra Pradesh. It is almost on the border. It is about 5 hours from Bangalore and 3 from Chennai. It is hot but not humid. In Summers the temperature goes up to forty eight degrees centigrade. For all the popularity it enjoys it is barely ten square kilometers in area. However on any given day the population density is very high because of a large floating population. Wherever you go, you see only pilgrims. Let me take you around the city without bumping into these pilgrims though I must warn you.. .It is not as easy as it sounds.
Places to See:
Tirupati is basically the external interface of the temple city of Tirumala. Tirumala is on the top of those hills and Tirupati is at the bottom. The northern boundary of Tirupati is Tirumala Hills.
The city is pretty congested with narrow roads and matchbox-houses. Sri Venkateswara University is a pleasant change from this disturbing concrete fabric of the city. (I studied here.) It has rows and rows of trees and bushes separated by an occasional man-made student habitat.
Gandhi Road
Apart from hanging out in the canteen or trying to crack Unix passwords in our computer center, the students normally roam around in the busiest business area of Tirupati - Gandhi Road. It is about half a kilometer in length full of merchants selling almost everything under the sun. It is a teenager’s ideal hangout spot because at six in the evening, you can find neatly dressed university students on this road. Don’t be surprised if you find more girls than boys here. There is a Mahila University in Tirupati (Ladies University) and it is known for dashing young dames.
It is the M.G.Road of Tirupati.
TTD Administrative Building.
This is the Admin office of the richest temple Devasthaanam… Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams. It is a huge building with a nice garden surrounding it. A very nice place to sit and talk about Einstein’s attempts at formulating a Unified Theory. ? However the place is hijacked by couples mostly.
Temples
There are more than a million temples in Tirupati. From an Agama Sastra point of view there are only a couple of temples worth mentioning. One is Govindaraja Swamy Temple which is known for its pravESa dvAraM and the other is Padmavathy Temple in Tiruchanoor… 3 KMs from the main city of Tirupati. These temples have a better architecture than the famous Tirumala Venkateswara temple.
kapila teerthaM
Basically a waterfall, this place sports a nice small kapilESvara swAmi temple. It is on the northern boundary of Tirupati. The road from this place to the Ghat road entrance (alipiri) of Tirumala is known for its scenic beauty. You will also find motorbikes zooming on this road at around a hundred kilometers per hour. It is the desi Autobahn for many University students.
alipiri
This is the ghat road entrance which marks the beginning of a 19 KM scenic drive to the abode of Lord VenkateSwara. It is a one-way road. So don’t be too scared to drive here. But of course this is no Autobahn.
Regional Science Center
A smaller version of Bangalore’s Visweswarayya Science Museum. There are some pretty interesting exhibits in this science center.
Other Interesting Places
The town has an SV Zoo which is under development now. When it is fully functional, it will be a bigger zoo than Nehru Zoological Park (Hyderabad). You can also visit an NTR park which has a musical fountain.
If you are interested in Sanskrit, Tirupati has a Deemed To Be University for Sanskrit. It has a nice ’’techno pond’’ (A water ditch actually.) which is where the seniors ask the juniors to catch frogs. It is the favorite ragging area for most University students.
Insignificant Details
Oh well! It is just like any other town in India. It has a railway station, an airport and a bus-station. It is a Muncipality and is known for its movie theatres. All hindi movies run extraordinarily well because of the large student population.
Last but not the least, there is paMca mukha AMjanEya vigrahaM which has only four faces.
If you want more details about Tirupati, M2M me. :)