Eight kilometres above Upper Ahobilam a mountain is split in two, and the cleft is called Ugra Stambham, the fierce pillar, where the people of the hill say the man-lion came out. After the killing he does not go back to heaven but stays in the forest, and there he sees a Chenchu girl, a daughter of the hunters who live in these hills. He wants to marry her, and her people make him prove himself as one of them, climbing cliffs, collecting honey and hunting. He passes, and they marry. The Chenchus who live near the shrine still sing the wedding in their own language, and in 1579 the seventh head of the Ahobila Matha made it a Sanskrit play.
R. Vasantha, Ahobilam Sri Narasimha Swamy Temple (archive.org); E. Debicka-Borek, Cracow Indological Studies (on Narasimha and the Chenchu girl); Ahobilam Nava Narasimha (Indian Columbus Heritage)
Sources: R. Vasantha, Ahobilam Sri Narasimha Swamy Temple (archive.org); E. Debicka-Borek, Cracow Indological Studies (on Narasimha and the Chenchu girl); Ahobilam Nava Narasimha (Indian Columbus Heritage)
After killing Hiranyakashipu, Narasimha's fury will not cool; in the Shiva Purana Shiva becomes the winged beast Sharabha and lifts him away, while in the Bhagavata Lakshmi dares not approach and the boy Prahlada calms him with a bow.
Twice a year, at the end of the Painkuni and Alpassi festivals, the images of Padmanabhaswamy, Narasimha and Krishna are carried from the temple to the sea at Shanghumugham, across the runway of Thiruvananthapuram's international airport, which closes for the evening.
The asura boy Prahlada survives his father's every attempt to kill him; Vishnu bursts from a pillar as Narasimha and kills Hiranyakashipu in a way that slips past every clause of his boon.