In Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool District, amidst the picturesque Nallamala Hills, lies an important spiritual centre: Ahobilam.

The nine temples of Narasimha located in the temple town draw pilgrims from throughout the state and beyond.

Ahobilam is also home to the Sri Ahobila Math, a religious seat that adheres to the Srivaishnava tradition. The math, which has a history dating back over six centuries, is inextricably linked to the Ahobilam temple.

In 1398 CE, the first mathadhipati, or head of the Ahobilam Math, Srimad Adivan Sadagopan, was initiated into monasticism by the deity, Sri Lakshmi Narasimha, in Ahobilam.

The deity bestowed on Sri Adivan Sadagopan an idol of Malola Lakshmi Narasimha, with a command to travel with it from village to village and propagate devotion to the Lord.

For centuries, it was the Math that was at the helm of the Ahobilam temples, controlling their administration and finance.

Authority on temple affairs lay with the jeers of the Math, the monastic successors in the lineage of the first mathadhipati.

Over the years, the Math has preserved the temples of Ahobilam and their traditions through thick and thin.

For instance, according to inscriptions found in the Ahobilam temple, the sixth jeer of the Ahobilam Math, with the help of the Vijayanagara king and the Telugu Chola chieftain, was able to renovate the temple in 1579 CE following an Islamic invasion.

Over the centuries that it managed the temple, the Math never faced any governmental overreach in its affairs. In 1989, the Andhra Pradesh government requested the mathadhipati to appoint his own disciple as manager of the temple.

In 2001, the then-Endowments Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Dandu Sivaramaraju, stated on the floor of the Legislative Assembly that it was legally not possible to override the authority of the mathadhipati by appointing an executive officer above him.

In 2008, the government promoted the math-appointed manager of the temple to the position of executive officer.

Eventually, the government began to appoint executive officers of its own accord without the knowledge of the mathadhipati, though there is no clear record of when this practice began.

Legally Tenuous

The legality of the Andhra Pradesh Endowments Department’s involvement in the temple’s affairs is in and of itself questionable.

A question arises as to whether the temple was even taken over officially by the state government.

Kidambi Sethu Raman, a descendant of the first Ahobilam mathadhipati, and whose family has been in the service of the math for generations, filed an RTI query with the Endowments Department to find the answer to this seemingly simple query.