Place · Pancharama Shiva temple · India
Somārāma, Bhīmavaram
Also known as Bhimavaram, Bhīmavaram, Somārāma
The Someshvara temple at Bhimavaram in West Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh — one of the five Pancharama Kshetras of Andhra, dedicated to Shiva as Somesvara. The linga is said to change colour with the lunar month, appearing white at full moon, black at new moon — the pigmentation effects possibly linked to the limestone-crystal composition of the self-manifest linga. The temple's current structure is 10th-century Eastern Chalukya with later additions. The goddess Annapurna Devi faces the linga as the paired consort. The Panguni Uthiram festival in March-April and the Mahashivaratri in February are the main annual events, with the colour-change observation drawing visitors every month.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 16.540, 81.520
Connections (2)
- Companion in the same setKshīrārāma, Palakollu
Somārāma at Bhīmavaram and Kshīrārāma at Palakollu stand twenty kilometres apart in West Godāvari, the closest pair in the set. Both are named for the colour of the stone — one said to change with the lunar month, the other white as milk — so the shards are told apart by how they look.
- Pitha network withBhīmeśvara, Drākshārāmam
The five Pancharama shrines — Draksharamam, Bhimavaram, Amaravati, Palakollu and Samarlakota — are held to be fragments of a single lingam broken by Tarakasura, which is how a scatter of separate delta towns becomes one ritual field. Draksharamam doubles as a Maha Shakta Pitha, so a Shaiva network and a Shakta one intersect at one temple with several hundred inscriptions in it.
On these journeys
Sources
Hindu pilgrimage sites in India — Wikipedia
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