Bhimesvara temple, Chalukya-Bhimavaram

The Bhimesvara temple at Bhimavaram, now part of Samalkot, is one of the few surviving temples that a medieval inscription gives by name to an Eastern Chalukya king. Its holiness comes from the legend of the five aramas, or “gardens”, of Shiva.¹²

The founder named in 1202

The Pithapuram pillar inscription of 1202 lists the Eastern Chalukya kings.¹ It says that the fourteenth, Chalukya-Bhima, was victorious in 360 battles and founded a temple of Shiva “called Chalukya-Bhimesvara after his own name”.¹

E. Hultzsch edited the inscription in 1897.¹ He added: “This temple still exists at Bhimavaram near Cocanada in the Godavari district.”¹ He pointed out that three of the temple’s own inscriptions give it this name, while others call the village Chalukya-Bhimesvarapura, Chalukya-Bhimanagari or Chalukya-Bhimapura.¹ In his view the village was named after the temple.¹ Five inscriptions call Bhimavaram itself Skandarama or Kumararama, “the garden of the War-god”.¹ Hultzsch numbered this king Chalukya-Bhima I.¹

M. Rama Rao described the temple in 1964.³ He wrote that Chalukya-Bhima built it towards the end of the 9th century and that it was named after him, and that the place was known as Kumararama.³

Where the sources disagree

Robert Sewell, working from local information in 1882, heard a different story.⁴ In it the temple “is said to have been erected in S.S. 1080 (A.D. 1158) by a Chalukya Maharaja”.⁴ He added a question mark, and noted that “his fort” was pointed out about 200 yards away.⁴

The temple’s own dated records do not reach back to the 9th century.⁵³ The Godavari district gazetteer (1907) counted thirty inscriptions in its two temples, of which the oldest was dated 1087.⁵ Rama Rao listed twenty-seven in the Bhimesvara temple, ranging from 1147 to 1494, although his list also includes a gift of Saka 1045 (1123; Saka is an Indian way of counting years).³

The legend of the five aramas

The gazetteer tells the legend as the local people did.² The god Subrahmanya killed a demon, Tarakasura, who wore a huge linga (emblem of Shiva) round his neck.² The linga broke into five pieces, which fell at Bhimavaram, Draksharama, Amaravati (Amararama), Palakollu (Ksheerarama) and “Kumara-rama”, a place the gazetteer could not identify.²

Rama Rao gives a version from the Godavari section of the Skanda Purana.⁶ In it Shiva cut the linga of the Tripura demons into five.⁶ Indra set one piece up at Amaravati, Soma one at Somarama and Rama one at Palakollu.⁶ Kumara set up the fourth “at Bhimavaram, the capital of the Calukyas”, as Kumara-Bhimalinga of Bhimarama, and the fifth was set up at Draksharama.⁶

Rama Rao identified Kumararama with Chalukya-Bhimavaram.⁷ The foreword to his monograph calls the five aramas the earliest temples in the coastal Telugu country that can safely be given to the Eastern Chalukya kings.⁸ See Bhimesvara temple, Draksharama.

The building

Rama Rao found that the temple “resembles in all respects” the Bhimesvara temple of Draksharama.⁹ It has a double enclosure wall of large stone blocks, with gateways in the four cardinal directions (north, south, east and west).⁹ In his time the northern one served as the main entrance.⁹ The main shrine stands in the centre, with a two-storeyed pillared verandah on all four sides.⁹

The shrine itself has two storeys.¹⁰¹¹ A tall eight-sided linga rises from a pedestal in the ground-floor sanctum.¹⁰¹¹ Its top is worshipped in the upper sanctum, which is reached by flights of steps.¹⁰¹¹ The tower above is a plain two-storeyed vimana (tower over the shrine) of the Nagara order.¹⁰¹¹

Lions with one forepaw raised decorate the base of the north gateway.⁹ The gazetteer added that a bath in the Bhimagundam tank in front of the temple was believed to confer holiness.²

Later gifts

The inscriptions that Rama Rao summarised record later building work:³

• A minister, Mantripragada Surana, built an eight-pillared mukhamantapa (front hall) in 1422 and the eastern entrance two years later.³
• In 1426 he installed an image of Gauri in the sanctum, in a record that again names the place Kumararama.³
• A stone quarry was given for the compound wall in the time of the Reddi king Kumaragiri of Kondavidu and his governor Allada.³

Footnotes

1. E. Hultzsch, “Pithapuram Pillar Inscription of Mallapadeva”, Epigraphia Indica IV (1896–97), p. 227 and notes 4–6 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

2. F. R. Hemingway, Madras District Gazetteers: Godavari (1907), p. 207 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. 30 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

4. Robert Sewell, Lists of the Antiquarian Remains in the Presidency of Madras, Vol. I (1882), p. 24, s.v. Bhimavaram (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Hemingway, Godavari (1907), p. 208 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

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

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

8. M. A. Waheed Khan, foreword to Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. i (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

9. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. 31 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

10. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. 33 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

11. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. 34 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴