95th Divyadesham – Kondapalayam
Sholinghur is a famous pilgrimage spot in Vellore District in the State of Tamil Nadu in India. It is about 120 KM (2 ½ hour drive) from Chennai and 260 KM (5 ½ hour drive) from Bengaluru.
It is the nearest town to Kondapalayam, which is home to one of the 108 Divyadesham (Lord Vishnu temples), with Sri Yoga Narasimha Swamy, the 4th Avatharam of Lord Vishnu (Sriman Narayana) as the presiding deity and Sri Amirthavalli Thayar as his consort.
The temple is located on top of a 450 foot hill called periya malai (big hill). This Divyadesham is also known as Gatikachalam and Thirukkadigai. There is also a temple nearby of Sri Anchaneya on a smaller hill called chinna malai, which is about 200 feet tall.
open between 8 am to 5.30 pm on weekdays and even earlier on special occasions and weekends. At the bottom of the hills is a smaller town called Kondapalayam, about 6 KM from Sholinghur on the Arakkonam-Walajah highway. Konda means hill and palayam means town and visitors to the temple usually get down here.
The big hill has 1305 (60-90 minutes) steps to climb and the small hill has 400 (20-30 minutes) steps. For the unable to climb crowd, there is also a doli or Jhoola service for between Rs. 1000-1600.