Sri Lakshmi Sametha Varada Yoga Bhoga Narasimha Swamy

Hassan district in Karnataka, India has many world heritage sites including Shravanbelagola Gommateswara, Halebidu, and Beluru temples. It has provided a Prime Minister to India. But for me all these credentials are not much when compared to number of religious places and temples found in this district that too shrines dedicated to Lord Narasimha in different names and forms. My God! There are varieties of Lord Narasimha, who is my family diety, for which I have great admiration. 
Lord Narasimha is known by several names like Narasingh, Narasingha and so on. Lord Narasimha is an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, who has been worshipped from thousands of years in India. The word &lsquo;Nara&rsquo; means human and &lsquo;Simha&rsquo; or &lsquo;Singh (a)&rsquo; means &lsquo;Lion&rsquo;. He bears the lion head on human body so he is identified as &lsquo;Narasimha&rsquo;. He assumed this shape to kill demon king Hiranyakashipu to save His ardent disciple Prahlada. He is great protector of His devotees at times of need. 
Adishankara was a great devotee of Lord Narasimha. His legendary story is interesting. Once Shankara entered a forest, which was prohibited area because of Kapalika, who used to sacrifice human beings to Goddess Kali. Shankara sat under a tree and did penance for many days. Alas! Instead of god Kapalika appeared before him and told Shankara that he should give his body as human sacrifice to Kalī. Shankara was happy and agreed. But his followers were shocked to hear this and pleaded with Shankara to change his mind. Shankara refused to do so saying that it was an honour for him to give up his body to please Mother Kalī. Kapalika arranged fire for sacrifice and Shankara was made to sit there. Shankara was uttering Sri Narasimha stotram (hymn) within self at that moment. Kapalika lifted his axe to severe the head of Shankara, immediately Lord Narasimha entered the body of Padmapada, a follower of Shankara and slayed Kapalika. Thus Shankara freed the forest from Kapalika, by the grace of Lord Narasimha. Shankara composed the powerful Lakshminarasimha Karavalambam, which is very popularly adopted in performing pooja of Lord Narasimha, even today. 
God is Omnipresent, Omnipotent and omniscient. Narasimha is an indication of His omnipresence and established that He is everywhere. Narasimha is the form of divine anger. Hence it is traditional that to worship Him very high level of attention is required compared to other gods. In several shrines Bachelors (Bramhachary) alone perform daily puja. Exception is where Narasimha appears sitting in yogic position (Yoganarasimha), or seen with His consort goddess Lakshmi (Bhoganarasimha). There others can also perform pujas, as Lord is more relaxed in both these instances compared to his form as seen at the time of emerging from pillar to protect Prahlada. 
There are several forms of Narasimha, but 9 of them are mainly considered as Nava Narasimha; namely Ugra, Krodha, Veera, Vilamba, Koapa, Yoga, Aghora, Sudarshana and Lakshminarasimha. We can see His nine forms with little variance in names at Ahobilam in Andhra Pradesh, who are very famous as powerful forms of Lord Narasimha. There are umpteen numbers of His shrines in Karnataka including Bhoganarasimha of Shantigrama close to Hassan city in Karnataka. After visiting this shrine I feel that every devotee of Lord Narasimha should make it a point to visit this beautiful temple. 
Shantigrama is a Village at 13km to Hassan. Hassan is a developing city. All its adjoining villages like Shantigrama are now becoming part of Hassan as its outskirts have stretched too far. On reaching Hassan bus stand we can get many means like buses, vans and Rickshaws to reach this temple.