I had driven down to Manthralayam and Srisailam over the weekend. On friday night, i reached manthralayam and had a good darshan on saturday morning. Then we drove from manthralayam to srisailam and reached the same day night. We found it difficult to get a decent room, as there were no private hotels. Finally got into a very decent government owned hotel. We had the darshan at 6:00 AM sunday morning. Since it was a sunday, the crowd was overwhelming and we could manage only a glimpse of the lord. Seems that, if you pay for Abhihekam , then they would allow you to do abhishekam yourself. General public would be allowed to go inside the sanctum only on tuesdays it seems. We started back at 09:30 AM from srisailam and came back via nandyal->banaganepalle->peapally->gooty->anantapur->bangalore. We made the mistake of coming via banagapalle instead of coming via curnool. Roads from nandyal to peapally are not good at all and to add to the woes, there are no petrol bunks. Diesel(kerosene??) is available for twice the normal cost. Somehow, we managed to drive till Peapully and joined the NH7 and filled the diesel(albeit extra mile) and managed to reach bangalore at 10:00 Pm yesterday night. On the whole it was a very good experience. Can someone post the historical significance of the Srisailam temple?
In Thirupathy itself there is a Archeological Museum - ASI - very much informative.
Special photograph of the NATURAL STONE ARCH - Several stones - Horizontally compressed in nature and forming a longer span positioned - naturally - on two supporting pillars - is called NATURAL STONE ARCH - 1500 Million yr old! Found in Tirumala Hills !
Arial view photograph of Tirumala - SRISAILAM - almost looking like Vasuki Snake shape is also displayed !
At the entrance inside wall, Dr. K.Neelakanta Sastry's photogaph is displayed!
There are fragments of Siva temples, Pillayar / Murugar / Tamil inscriptions displayed.
Worth visiting. Located near Sringeri Mutt Kalyana Mandapam.