Bhimesvara temple, Chebrolu

The Bhimesvara temple stands on a large mound at the eastern end of Chebrolu, in the old Bapatla taluk of Guntur district.¹²³ M. Rama Rao surveyed it in 1956–58 and counted it among the temples of the Eastern Chalukyas.¹²³ He described it as a two-storeyed Shiva temple like those at Draksharama, Chalukya-Bhimavaram and Amaravati.¹²³ He thought its unusual features made it important for the study of early temple architecture.¹²³

Who built it?

Rama Rao held that the Bhimesvara temples of Draksharama, Chalukya-Bhimavaram and Chebrolu were all built by Chalukya-Bhima I.⁴¹ He held that their god was named after this king.⁴¹ In his preface he says the same of the Shiva shrine at Chebrolu, together with those of the five Pancharamas.⁴¹ He dated that king’s reign 892–922.⁵⁶ This site follows J. F. Fleet and Robert Sewell, who put it at 888–918.⁵⁶

The foreword to Rama Rao’s book, by M. A. Waheed Khan, lists Chebrolu among the surviving remains of temples built by Gunaga Vijayaditya III and Chalukya-Bhima I.⁵ But it also names the temples that “seem to be” the kings’ original buildings.⁵ These are Bikkavolu, Draksharama, Palakollu and Chalukya-Bhimavaram, and Chebrolu is not among them.⁵

Rama Rao’s chapter on the temple itself does not discuss its builder.²³ None of the inscriptions he cites is said to be on this temple.²³

The older accounts

The older accounts of Chebrolu do not mention a Bhimesvara temple at all. Robert Sewell’s list of 1882 placed the town’s inscriptions at the temple of Nagesvarasvami.⁷ The Kistna district manual of 1883 likewise named the Nagesvara temple as the place of its inscriptions.⁸

The manual reported a rumour about Raja Vasireddi Venkatadri Naidu, zamindar (landholder) of Chintapalle.⁸ According to the rumour, he destroyed many of the old temples of Chebrolu early in the 19th century in a search for hidden treasure.⁸ The manual added that he rebuilt or restored some of them.⁸

E. Hultzsch edited the long inscription of the Kakatiya general Jaya in 1899.⁹ He found that its list of temple property names temples of Chodabhimesvara and Vasudeva at Chebrolu.⁹ He wrote that these “cannot now be identified at Chebrolu”.⁹ Rama Rao summarised the same inscription, including the gifts to “Codabhimesvara”.²³ He did not connect that name with the temple he described.²³

Inscriptions at Chebrolu

Rama Rao counted eighteen inscriptions in the temples of Chebrolu.² He thought that most of them had belonged to a temple of Kumara (Kumarasvamin, the war-god Skanda).² In his view this temple no longer existed and must have stood on the eastern part of the mound.²

Hultzsch, by contrast, wrote in 1899 that the temple of Kumarasvamin was “now called Nagesvara”.⁹ This temple had given Chebrolu its Sanskrit name of “city of Shanmukha”.⁹

V. Rangacharya’s list of 1919 draws on the Madras epigraphical collection of 1897.¹⁰¹¹² It places most of the Chebrolu records at or near the Nagesvara temple.¹⁰¹¹² Among them are these two:¹⁰¹¹²

• a record of Saka 928 (1006; Saka is an Indian way of counting years) of the Western Chalukya king Satyasraya II, recording a gift to Kumarasvamin¹⁰¹¹²
• a gift of Saka 998 by the Velanadu general Gonka, made in the seventh year of a king called Vishnuvardhana-Maharaja¹⁰¹¹²

Rangacharya identified that king with Kulottunga I.¹⁰¹¹² F. Kielhorn dated the record to 10 February 1077.¹⁰¹¹² Rama Rao gives the year as 1076.¹⁰¹¹² See Kulottunga I.

Jaya’s inscription of 1213

The longest record stands on a pillar in front of the gopura (gate tower) of the Nagesvara temple.¹²¹³ It tells how the Kakatiya king Ganapati, returning from a conquest in the south, gave Chebrolu to Jaya, the commander of his elephant troops, in Saka 1135 (1213–14).¹²¹³

According to Hultzsch’s translation, Jaya did these works:¹²¹³

• repaired and whitewashed all the temples of the town and set golden pinnacles on them¹²¹³
• covered the image of Kumarasvamin with gold¹²¹³
• built an enclosure, a mantapa (pillared hall) and a three-storeyed gopura¹²¹³
• set up again two lingas (stone emblems of Shiva) destroyed by robbers¹²¹³
• surrounded the town with a wall and towers¹²¹³

The inscription’s Telugu portion lists the villages and shares belonging to the temples.⁹¹⁴³ It also lists the temple’s servants, from priests and an astrologer to three hundred dancing-girls.⁹¹⁴³

Rangacharya adds a second record of Jaya, of 1235.¹¹ It says that he built the temple of Chodesvara, named after his father.¹¹ Rama Rao noted two small shrines of Codesvara and Nagesvara near a modern temple of Brahma on the mound.²

The building

The temple faces east inside a walled compound with a gate.³ A flight of steps leads up to a projecting front that carries the main entrance.³ The base of the ground floor is buried, and pilasters divide the outer walls into empty niches.³ In the middle of each side are niches under makara-toranas (arches with sea-monster ends), and a Gajalakshmi is carved on a closed doorway lintel.³

Rama Rao compared it with Draksharama, where the ground floor is open and the foot of the tall linga can be seen.³ At Chebrolu, as at Amaravati, the ground floor is closed.³ The linga of Bhimesvara stands on the upper floor, on a finely carved pedestal.³

The upper floor

On the upper floor a passage for circumambulation (walking round the shrine) runs round the sanctum on three sides.¹⁵¹⁶ The sanctum has a doorway on each side, and the eastern one has leaning door-guardians, dancing figures on the jambs and Gajalakshmi on the lintel.¹⁵¹⁶ Inside, a pedestal of carved black granite holds a polished black granite linga.¹⁵¹⁶

A small shrine of the goddess stands in the north-eastern corner.¹⁵¹⁶ The hall in front has a black granite Nandi among its pillars.¹⁵¹⁶ Rama Rao thought the tower had been rebuilt.¹⁵ It is of a single storey in the Vesara order, with a round sikhara (tower top) crowned by lotuses and a kalasa (finial pot).¹⁵ (See Bhimesvara temple, Draksharama and Bhimesvara temple, Chalukya-Bhimavaram.)

Sculptures that once stood here

Rama Rao recorded that large carvings of Shiva embracing Parvati had stood on the temple steps.² A carving of Bhairava had stood near the Codesvara shrine.² Until shortly before his survey, two uprights of the railing of a Buddhist stupa (relic mound) and a slab carved with a full vase lay near the temple’s flagstaff.²

Footnotes

1. M. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples of Andhra Desa (1964), preface (unnumbered) (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

2. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. 45 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³

3. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. 46 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷

4. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. 2 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Mohd. Abdul Waheed Khan, foreword to M. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples of Andhra Desa (1964), p. i (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

6. Robert Sewell and S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 337, pedigree and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

7. Robert Sewell, Lists of the Antiquarian Remains in the Presidency of Madras, Vol. I (1882), p. 82, s.v. Chebrolu (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

8. Gordon Mackenzie, A Manual of the Kistna District (1883), p. 203 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

9. Hultzsch, “Chebrolu Inscription of Jaya” (1899), p. 143 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

10. V. Rangacharya, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency, Vol. II (1919), p. 754, Bapatla taluk, Chebrolu, Nos. 83–87 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

11. Rangacharya, Topographical List, Vol. II (1919), p. 755, Nos. 88–93 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

12. E. Hultzsch, “Chebrolu Inscription of Jaya; after Saka-Samvat 1135”, Epigraphia Indica V (1898–99), p. 142 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

13. Hultzsch, “Chebrolu Inscription of Jaya” (1899), p. 149, abstract of contents (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

14. Hultzsch, “Chebrolu Inscription of Jaya” (1899), p. 150 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

15. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. 47 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

16. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. 48 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵