Venkateswara
வேங்கடேசப் பெருமாள் वेङ्कटेश्वर
Also Balaji, Srinivasa, Govinda, Ezhumalaiyan, Tirupati Perumal.
Vaishnava
Who this is
Venkateswara is Vishnu standing on the Tirumala hill, and his temple takes more pilgrims and more money than any other place of worship in the world. The story that holds the whole thing together is a debt: he borrowed from Kubera for his wedding to Padmavathi and is still repaying it, which is why the devotee puts money in the hundi and why the offering is a loan being cleared rather than a gift. The hair offering is the other half of the same bargain. He is approached as a creditor who can be dealt with, and families go with a specific request and come back to settle when it is granted.
How to recognise them
Standing, four armed, with the conch and discus in the upper hands, the lower right in the varada gesture pointing down to his feet and the lower left on the hip. The face is covered in camphor paste with a long namam that hides the eyes, because the full gaze is held to be unbearable. Lakshmi is on his chest as a mark.
Family and companions
Vishnu, husband of Padmavathi, who is Lakshmi born as the daughter of Akasa Raja and whose shrine is at Tiruchanur, visited first by custom. Bhudevi is with him as well. Kubera is his creditor, which is a relation no other deity has.
How they are worshipped
Saturday; the whole of Purattasi; Vaikunta Ekadasi; the Brahmotsavam in Ashwin.
The hair offering, the tonsure, is the commonest vow. The hundi takes the repayment. Suprabhatam is sung at the opening of the sanctum before dawn and is the best known recording in the Telugu country. The laddu is the prasadam and is made by the lakh. Saturday is his day, and the month of Purattasi in the Tamil country is given to him entirely.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
The loan from Kubera
Srinivasa, come to the hill, fell in love with Padmavathi and had nothing to pay for the wedding. He borrowed from Kubera, the treasurer of the gods, on terms that the interest be paid until the end of this age. The devotee’s offering at the hundi is understood as a contribution to that repayment, which turns an act of piety into the settling of somebody else’s honest debt. The hair is given for the same reason, as a thing of value a person always has. No other major shrine explains its own wealth this way, and the frankness of it is part of why the explanation has lasted.
The kick and the anthill
Bhrigu, testing which god was greatest, kicked Vishnu on the chest where Lakshmi dwells. Vishnu apologised and rubbed the sage’s foot; Lakshmi, insulted that her place had been struck and her husband had said nothing for her, left. He came to the Venkata hill looking for her and lived there in an anthill as a hermit. The story is given as the reason he is on the hill at all, and the Tamil and Telugu tellings both keep the detail that the quarrel was never quite made up, which is why she is at Tiruchanur and he is on the hill.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Andhra and Telangana
- Tirumala is the centre of Telugu devotion, with the Brahmotsavam in Ashwin, the Garuda Seva night and the Suprabhatam before dawn.
- Tamil Nadu
- The month of Purattasi is given to him, with Saturdays kept vegetarian and often fasting, and the Tamil name Ezhumalaiyan, lord of the seven hills.
- Karnataka
- Karnataka sends pilgrims in numbers and the Tirumala vow is as common there as in Andhra.
- North India
- Known as Balaji, with the name used for several unrelated shrines in Rajasthan, which causes confusion the south does not have.
Their days
Every one of these has a page of its own
Where to see them
From the temple directory
- Tirumala Sri Venkateswara Temple Tirumala, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh
- Sri Padmavathi Ammavari Temple, Tiruchanur Tiruchanur, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh
- Sri Venkateswara Temple, Dwaraka Tirumala Dwaraka Tirumala, Eluru, Andhra Pradesh
What is said
From the mantra library
In the almanac
Their nakshatras