Puttaparthi ( IAST: ''Puṭṭaparthy'') is a municipality and district headquarters of Sri Sathya Sai district of the

Indian state India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, with a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions. History Pre-indepen ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. It is located in Puttaparthi mandal of Puttaparthi revenue division. The original name of Puttaparthi was Gollapalli. The town is located on the banks of Chitravathi River which is a tributary of

Penna River Penna (also known as Pinakini, Pennar, Penner, Penneru (Telugu), Pennai (Tamil)) is a river of southern India. This is a unique river in world where after originating from Nandi hills, it flows as two different streams, one in North and South ...

, and is surrounded by undulating hills. It is widely known for the birthplace of the Indian spiritual leader and guru Sathya Sai Baba and his ashram, Prasanthi Nilayam.

Etymology

Puttaparthi means "village of anthills." A local legend says that a cobra snake cursed the village after being hit by a cowherder, which caused the proliferation of anthills in this area.

Demographics

The official language in Puttaparthi is Telugu. Other common languages spoken in Puttaparthi are

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

, and

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

. Various national and international languages are understood and spoken due to the presence of national and international devotees.

Geography

Climate

Chitravathi River, Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, India

The climate is generally hot and dry throughout the year, summer temperatures ranging from and winter . The hotter months are from March until July and the milder months are from November until January. The southwest monsoons play a major role in determining the climate. The northeast monsoons are responsible for about one-third of the total rainfall. Some rainfall may be expected during the months of July and August and again from October to December." Puttaparthi is 475 meters (1558 feet) above sea level.

Transport

Road

The

Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) is the state-owned road transport corporation in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Its headquarters is located at NTR Administrative Block of RTC House in Pandit Nehru bus station of V ...

(APSRTC) operates bus services from Puttaparthi bus station. People visit Puttaparthi from all over India, and most State transport services also supply buses to Puttaparthi. Puttaparthi is well connected by road to Anantapur (84 km),

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India ...

, (441 km),

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

(154 km),

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

(529 km) and all parts of Anantapur district.

Rail

Puttaparthi has a railway station named as Sri Sathya Sai Prasanthi Nilayam. The Railway station was inaugurated and became functional from November 23, 2000, Baba's 74th birthday. It is about 8 km to the west of the ashram. This station falls under the Bangalore Division of the South Western Railway and lies on the Bangalore–Guntakal railway line. It is easy to reach the town from the railway station in 20-25 mins, through various modes of transport like

cabs C mathematical operations are a group of functions in the standard library of the C programming language implementing basic mathematical functions. All functions use floating-point numbers in one manner or another. Different C standards provide d ...

autorickshaw An auto rickshaw is a motorized version of the pulled rickshaw or cycle rickshaw. Most have three wheels and do not tilt. They are known by many terms in various countries including auto, auto rickshaw, baby taxi, mototaxi, pigeon, jonnybee, bajaj ...

s and APSRTC buses. The town is connected directly by train to

, Coimbatore,

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Ho ...

, and

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

. and Sri Sathya Sai Prasanthi Nilayam railway station is the 5th busiest station in Bangalore division of SWR.

Air

Puttaparthi Airport is a domestic airport situated in the town. The nearest International airport is the Kempegowda International Airport at

Devanahalli Devanahalli, also called "Devandahalli", "Dyaavandalli", Devanadoddi, and Devanapura, is a town and Town Municipal Council in Bengaluru Rural district in the state of Karnataka in India. The town is located to the north-east of Bengaluru. Deva ...

, a suburb of Bangalore which is about 119 km from Puttaparthi.

Sports

Sri Sathya Sai International Centre for Sports and Sri Sathya Sai Hill View Stadium are two sporting facilities in Puttaparthi. Hill View Stadium was established in 1985 and mainly used cricket and capacity of 50,000 people. International Centre for Sports was established in 2006 with indoor facilities for Basketball, Volleyball, Tennis, Squash, Table Tennis, Badminton, Gymnastics and Yoga/Aerobics.

References

External links

{{Authority control Cities and towns in Sri Sathya Sai district