Place · Pancharama Shiva temple · India
Kumārārāma, Sāmarlakota
The temple at Samarlakota in East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh — one of the five Pancharama Kshetras of Andhra, the five Shiva temples established at the five fragments of the pre-cosmic linga that Vishnu's discus Narayana scattered after Tarakasura's death. The temple's Shiva linga (Kumararama) rises through two storeys of the sanctum — a distinctive feature. The 10-11th-century Eastern Chalukya temple under king Chalukya Bhima II is one of the finest examples of Deccan Chalukya temple architecture. The Shivaratri festival each February-March draws pilgrims from across the Godavari delta. The temple's inscriptions in Telugu, Prakrit and Sanskrit span four centuries of continuous endowment.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 17.050, 82.170
Connections (2)
- PatronageChālukya Bhīma I
Kumāra Bhīmeśvara at Sāmarlakota is the near-twin of Drākshārāmam, built by the same king within the same reign, ninety kilometres up the delta. Both carry his name, both rise through two storeys around a liṅga too tall to bathe from the floor, and both keep an upper gallery for the purpose.
- Companion in the same setKshīrārāma, Palakollu
Kshīrārāma and Kumārārāma are the shards installed by Vishnu and by Kumāra, the first and last acts in the story. Palakollu answers with a forty-five-metre gopuram and Sāmarlakota with the two-storey Chālukya sanctum: one grew outward in the sixteenth century, the other upward in the tenth. Kumārārāma's upper gallery exists only so that abhisheka can reach the head of a liṅga too tall to bathe from the floor, which is the structural problem the whole set shares.
On these journeys
Sources
Hindu pilgrimage sites in India — Wikipedia
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