Divya Desams
திவ்ய தேசம்
The Divya Desams are the 108 holy abodes of Vishnu celebrated in the Tamil hymns of the Alvars, the poet-saints of the Sri Vaishnava tradition, gathered in the Nalayira Divya Prabandham. To visit them is to follow the Alvars' own map of devotion, drawn across the Tamil country and beyond — most lie in the south, a handful in the north, and two are held to be beyond the earthly world. This circuit gathers the greatest of them: Srirangam, the first and foremost, where Vishnu reclines as Ranganatha in the largest living temple on earth; and Tirumala, the hill of Venkateswara, the most visited temple in the world. Together they anchor a pilgrimage tradition more than a thousand years old, in which the temple is not a monument but a living verse in a devotional song.