Paruveta Festival:
The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) is making efforts to secure UNESCO recognition for the annual ‘Paruveta’ festival.
- The festival, also known as the ‘mock hunting festival’, is celebrated at the Sri Narasimha Swamy temple in the town of Ahobilam, Andhra Pradesh.
- It is celebrated by all sections of people, irrespective of their caste.
- It is a festival of communal harmony, as devotees from other religious communities like Muslims also offer prayers to the
- According to folklore, Lord Vishnu, upon his incarnation as a man-lion (Narasimha) in Ahobilam, married Maha Lakshmi, born as a tribal girl Chenchulakshmi.
- The Kurnool District Gazetteers, published by Government Press in 1881, record several beliefs of the Chenchu tribes, including their reverence for Ahobila Narasimha as their brother-in-law and inviting him home for Makar Sankranti.
- While Paruveta rituals are commonly observed in many temples during Vijayadashami or Sankranti, at Ahobilam, it is conducted for a ‘mandala’ (forty days).
