Simhachalam Temple
— — the temple the sandalwood keeps.
Not only on a wall.
“A hilltop temple above the Bay of Bengal port of Visakhapatnam, on the Andhra coast. The shrine to Varaha Narasimha is wrapped in sandalwood paste every day of the year except one, Akshaya Tritiya, when the paste is washed away and the stone deity is seen plainly. Pilgrims climb the stepped road in the cool hours before sunrise, when the hill is still in shade and the coastal plain is just beginning to lift its haze.
Simhachalam Temple, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Simhachalam stands on a low forested hill about 16 kilometres north of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, the southern Indian state along the Bay of Bengal. The temple is dedicated to Varaha Narasimha, a composite form of Vishnu joining the boar and man-lion avatars, and is one of the major Narasimha kshetras revered across the subcontinent. The current Kalinga-style structure dates to the 11th century, with inscriptions linking the eastern Ganga rulers and later the Reddy dynasty to its expansion. The hill rises about 244 metres above the coastal plain.
For all but one day of the year, the stone deity is kept under a thick coat of chandanam, sandalwood paste applied in successive layers from the Vaisakha month onward. On Akshaya Tritiya, usually falling in late April or early May, the paste is removed in the Chandanotsavam ceremony and the original Varaha Narasimha image is revealed for twelve hours. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims arrive for the nija-rupa darshanam, the sight of the true form, before the coat begins again.
The temple is reached from Visakhapatnam by a stepped pilgrim path of roughly 1,000 steps or by a hill road open to vehicles and Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation buses. Darshanam begins before sunrise; the hill is cooler and quieter then. The Endowments Department of Andhra Pradesh administers the shrine, and basic entry is free with paid faster-queue tickets available for festival days. Non-Hindus may enter the outer precincts; access to the inner sanctum follows the temple's own protocols.