Mallikarjuna Panditaradhya · Telugu History

Mallikarjuna Panditaradhya was a Shaiva teacher of the 12th century, born at Draksharama in the Godavari country.¹² He led the Aradhyas, Shaiva Brahmins who worshipped Shiva but kept their caste and their Vedic rites.³⁴ The poet Palkuriki Somanatha later told his life in the Telugu Panditaradhya Charitra, a long poem in couplets.²

Birth at Draksharama

L. D. Barnett described him as “a native of Daksharama”, the son of Bhimana, priest of the Bhimesvara temple there.¹ According to the story Barnett cites, Bhimana obtained the child as a reward for his worship of the god Mallikarjuna at Srisailam.¹ M. Rama Rao, writing on the temples of the Eastern Chalukyas, also names Panditaradhya as the son of the temple’s priest.⁵ See Draksharama Bhimesvara temple.

His time

P. V. Parabrahma Sastry places him in the age of the Kakatiyas. He makes Mallikarjuna-pandita a contemporary of the Velanati king Rajendra Choda, probably the second of that name (1162–1181).² With two other teachers, Sripati-pandita and Manchana-pandita, he preached Shaivism all over the Andhra country.² The Kakatiya kings did not patronise this school, yet it grew strong in their time.²

The Aradhya way

P. Sreenivasachar explained who the Aradhyas were. In his day there were still Brahmins in the Telugu country who called themselves Aradhyas or Saiva-Brahmanas.³ “The most famous Aradhya of the ancient times”, he wrote, was Panditaradhya.³

The story goes that Basava once asked Panditaradhya to give up the sacred thread and caste and join him.⁴ Panditaradhya replied that he was a great devotee of Shiva, but could not give up being a Brahmin.⁴ Sreenivasachar adds that the Aradhyas still kept the Vedic rites and ate with other Brahmins, which the Virashaivas (Lingayats) strongly objected to.⁴

The debate at Chandavolu

Somanatha’s poem tells of a dispute between Panditaradhya and a Buddhist teacher at the court of Rajendra Choda II of Chandavolu.⁶ Parabrahma Sastry retells it. In the poem, Panditaradhya’s followers killed the Buddhist teachers and destroyed their home.⁶ The angry king had Panditaradhya blinded. Shiva gave him back his sight, and he cursed the king and left for Srisailam.⁶ Parabrahma Sastry calls this the last event recorded against Buddhism in the Andhra country.⁶

Followers and memory

His followers carried his name for generations. A drawing of the goddess Gauri scratched on the wall of the temple at Palampet has a short Sanskrit note beside it.¹ It was written by one Vibhuti Gauraya, born near Warangal and living on Srisailam, who called himself a servant of “the house of the blessed Panditaradhya”.¹⁷

The epigraphy report for 1925–26 records a Virashaiva tradition about Srisailam. Of the five chief seats of their religion, one was on that hill, and its monastery was believed to have been founded by Mallikarjuna Panditaradhya.⁷

An inscription at Dharmasagar records a gift of land by Malla, a minister of Ganapatideva, to two sons of a Panditaradhya.³⁴ Sreenivasachar thought this Panditaradhya could not have lived before the late 12th century. He found it “tempting” to identify him with Mallikarjuna Panditaradhya, though he did not say it was certain.³

Where the sources disagree

Aradhya or Virashaiva. The epigraphy report of 1925–26 calls Panditaradhya a contemporary of Basava who spread the Virashaiva faith “as much as Basava”, differing only in keeping Brahmin rituals.⁷ Sreenivasachar instead says the Aradhyas were “essentially different” from the Virashaivas, and came closer to Basava’s creed only later.⁴

The Palampet note. Barnett read the Palampet note as Vibhuti, a slave of Panditaradhya’s house, seeking “the protection of Gauri”.¹ The epigraphy report says the note does not mention Gauri at all, and that vibhuti (“sacred ashes”) is a title, not a name: the man was Gauraya “of the sacred ashes”.⁷

His sons at Dharmasagar. Sreenivasachar linked the two sons in the Dharmasagar grant with Mallikarjuna Panditaradhya only as a likely guess.³ Barnett too called the Panditaradhya of the Palampet note “probably” this teacher.¹

L. D. Barnett (ed.), Inscriptions at Palampet and Uparpalli (Hyderabad Archaeological Series No. 3, 1919), p. 12 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 278. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
P. Sreenivasachar (ed.), A Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts, Part I (1942), p. 20 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Sreenivasachar, Corpus, Part I (1942), p. 21 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
M. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples of Andhra Desa (1964), p. 15 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 271. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Annual Report on South-Indian Epigraphy for the year ending 31 March 1926 (1927), p. 117 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴