Tirumala Venkateswara Temple

The Venkateswara Temple at Tirumala, also known as the Tirumala Temple or Tirupati Balaji Temple, is a Hindu shrine dedicated to Venkateswara, a form of Vishnu, standing on the seventh peak of the Tirumala Hills in the Seshachalam range of Andhra Pradesh, India, at an elevation of about 980 meters. Built in the Dravidian architectural tradition, the temple grew gradually from around 300 CE, and its inner sanctum, called Ananda Nilayam, houses the main deity facing east, its rites following Vaikhanasa liturgical practice. It is counted among the eight self-manifested shrines of Vishnu and among the 108 Divya Desam temples named in classical Tamil devotional literature, and it draws around 24 million pilgrims a year, one of the most visited religious sites in the world. The temple is also among the wealthiest Hindu institutions, administered by the autonomous Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams under the government of Andhra Pradesh.