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About Tirupati

Tirupati has been a religious center since the ancient times. Its earliest record is found in the Sangam literature of Tamil, which dates back as far as to 500 BC. It was referred to by the name of Tiruvengadam in Silapadikaram and Satanar's Manimekalai of the Sangam Literature. Later during the period of the Mauryan and the Guptas, it found its mention as "Aadi Varaha Kshetra" in Indian literature. As an ancient site of Varaha, one of the incarnations of Lord Vishnu, it was attributed with immense spiritual value and even considered as the heaven on the earth.

By the end of the fifth century AD, the significance of Tirupati as the abode of Lord Venketeswara was well established, and we find references of Vaishnava saints known as the Alvars and belonging to the Bhakti movement, singing devotional song in praise of the Lord.

The temple of Tirumala was built by Thondaimaan, a Tamil king, and was further extended and embellished by the Southern rulers, like the Cholas, Hoysalas and the Vijayanagara kings. It was in the eleventh century when the ceremonial rituals of the temple were established by one of the Vaishnavite saints known as Ramanujacharya.

Tirupati became a politically important site during the reign of the Vijayanagara kings who used Chandragiri, a village near the modern city, as their second capital. The downfall of the Vijayanagara empire prompted Muslim rulers of the North to conduct military expeditions in South India. Though many temple cities of the south bore the brunt of these invasions, Tirupati managed to survive and remain aloof from the consequences of such attacks. There is a hall in Tirupati, which was named as Ranganatha Mandapa, after the shifting of the diety of Sriranganatha from Srirangam to Tripati for safety purposes during one of such invasions.

When the British took control of the region in 1843, it entrusted the administration of the Sri Venkateshwara temple to Seva Dossji of Hathiramji Mutt at Tirumala. The mahants of this mutt continued to look after the administration of the temple until the formation of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) committee in 1933 as result of a legislation passed in the Madras Legislative Assembly.

Modern Tirupati has evolved into a city ready to compete with most of cities in India in terms of the features that form the very characteristics of these advanced cities. There are multi cuisine restaurants and eating places that are a treat to your sense of outings and there are multiplexes, malls and mult brand showrooms to give you a feel of the contemporary urban lifestyle. Traffic is all abuzz with all kinds of noises, round the clock near bus stand and railway stations. Though residential localities are comparatively calm and quiet, the commercial localities including the Centenary Park and the shopping complexes near the Central Park are the most happening places in the city.