Place · Kakatiya temple · India
Thousand Pillar Temple, Hanamkonda
The 1163 CE Rudreshvara ('Thousand Pillar Temple') at Hanamkonda in Warangal district, Telangana, built by the Kakatiya king Rudra Deva as a trikutalaya — a three-shrined temple to Shiva (central), Vishnu (east) and Surya (west) — on a star-shaped plan on a raised platform. The free-standing Nandi mandapa in granite, carved from a single stone, is one of the finest Kakatiya pieces. The temple's 1,000+ pillars (actually around 300, but the folk count stuck) carry individually unique relief panels in dolerite. The temple was damaged by the 1310 Khilji invasion of Warangal (Malik Kafur's campaign) and partially reconstructed by the Kakatiya successors. The current structure retains much of the original sculpture. UNESCO tentative list since 2014.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Patron dynasty
- Kakatiya
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 18.008, 79.550
Connections (1)
- Site adjacencyWarangal Fort
Rudradeva's Thousand Pillar Temple at Hanamkonda, of 1163, stands a few kilometres from the fort that became the Kakatiya capital — a three-shrined star-plan temple with a detached Nandi mandapa, in the black granite the dynasty used rather than the Hoysalas' soapstone, which is why its carving is bolder and less fine. It was dismantled and rebuilt by the Archaeological Survey in the 2000s.
On these journeys
Sources
History of India — Wikipedia
Open Thousand Pillar Temple, Hanamkonda in the repository →