Draksharama

Draksharama

Temple town in the Godavari delta, four miles south of Ramachandrapuram. It is famous as the 'Southern Benares' for its temple of Bhimesvara, whose walls carry hundreds of inscriptions from the 11th century onwards. Tradition derives its name from Daksharama, the garden of Daksha. It counts the temple's linga among the five Pancharama shrines.

A tall gateway tower of several storeys with openings in the centre of each, rising above a pillared entrance; a car and a few people at its foot. · M. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples of Andhra Desa (Andhra Pradesh Government Archaeological Series No. 19, ed. Mohd. Abdul Waheed Khan, Director of Archaeology); photographer not credited (opens in a new tab) · Public domain in India

Draksharama (Draksharamam) lies in the Godavari delta, four miles south by east of Ramachandrapuram.¹ The Godavari district gazetteer of 1907 gave its population as 11,213.¹ It described a large cattle market and a choultry (rest house) for feeding Brahmins.¹ It called the village “noted for its fine temple and for its sanctity”.¹

The Imperial Gazetteer of 1908 named Draksharama and Kotipalli as the two well-known places of pilgrimage in the Ramachandrapuram taluk.² Among the temples of the district, it singled out the Draksharama temple for “inscriptions of value”.³

The name and the legends

The gazetteer reports that the name is said to be more correctly Daksharama, “the Garden of Daksha”.¹ It retells the story from the Siva Purana.¹ Daksha, Shiva’s father-in-law, held a sacrifice without inviting him.¹ His daughter went uninvited and was insulted, and she threw herself into the fire.¹ Virabhadra, born of Shiva’s anger, then killed Daksha.¹

For this reason, the gazetteer says, orthodox Brahmins would not perform a sacrifice inside the village.¹ M. Rama Rao, writing in 1964, told the same legend from the Godavari section of the Skanda Purana.⁴⁵ He also told it from the Telugu poet Srinatha’s Bhimesvara Puranamu.⁴⁵

The tank at Draksharama is called Sapta-Godavari, “the seven Godavaris”.¹ Legend says that seven sages made the seven mouths of the Godavari.¹ Each of them brought water from his river underground to this tank.¹ A bath at its sacred ghat was believed to give, in condensed form, the merit of bathing in all seven.¹

Rama Rao gives the Skanda Purana story of the seven sages leading the river underground to Daksharama.⁵⁶ There they found that Shiva had already installed himself in the linga (stone emblem of Shiva).⁵⁶

Like other holy places, the gazetteer adds, the town is called the southern Benares.¹ Some believed that a night’s halt there made future births unnecessary.¹⁷ Rama Rao also notes a tradition about the name Trilinga.⁸ In it, the god Bhimesvara of Draksharama, with Mallikarjuna of Srisailam and Kalesvara of Kalesvaram, gave the Telugu country this name.⁸

The temple and its inscriptions

The temple of Bhimesvara is the centre of the town’s religious life.¹ The gazetteer counted 271 inscriptions transcribed by the Government Epigraphist (Nos. 181 to 451 of 1893).⁷ The earliest dated record it found was of 1055, in the reign of the Rajaraja whose capital was at Rajahmundry.⁷ The latest was of 1447.⁷

Robert Sewell had printed a list of the temple’s inscriptions in 1882.⁹ He took it from copies made by a clerk who had worked under Walter Elliot.⁹ He warned that he felt sure they were “very untrustworthy”, but did not like to omit them.⁹ See Bhimesvara temple, Draksharama and Rajaraja Narendra.

The Chellur plates of the Chola-Chalukya viceroy Vira-Choda praise a certain Medamarya.¹⁰¹¹ He founded two sattras (feeding houses) where Brahmins were fed daily, “at holy Draksharama and at the sacred place of Pithapuri”.¹⁰¹¹

Records of the regional houses

Hultzsch used a Draksharama record to identify Sanadavrolu, the residence of the Velanati chief Gonka III, with Tsandavolu.¹² He noted that the Pithapuram inscription credits Gonka II with placing a golden pinnacle on the temple of Bhimanatha.¹²¹³¹⁴ The same inscription records rich gifts to the temple by a later Rajendra Choda.¹²¹³¹⁴ See the Velanati Chodas.

The Haihaya chiefs of the Kona country, in the Godavari delta, appear in the temple’s records from 1128.¹⁵ One of them, Rajendra Choda I of Kona, built a mandapa (pillared hall) in the temple.¹⁵ See the Haihayas of Kona and Palnadu.

Dutch and Muslim Draksharama

Sewell recorded two “handsomely carved Dutch tombs” dated 1673 and 1728.⁹ They stood at a place still called Ollandu Dibba, “Holland mound”.⁹

The gazetteer describes Draksharama as sacred to Muslims as well.⁷ The Muslims of the neighbourhood greatly revered the mosque and tomb of a saint called Saiyid Shah Bhaji Aulia.⁷ In the legend the gazetteer recorded, the saint won a contest of holiness with the Saiva head-priest of a local matha (monastery).⁷ He then turned the matha into a mosque.⁷

F. R. Hemingway, Madras District Gazetteers: Godavari (1907), p. 250, s.v. Draksharamam (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷
Imperial Gazetteer of India: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 291 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Imperial Gazetteer of India: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 273 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. 15 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. 16 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples (1964), p. 17 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Hemingway, Godavari (1907), p. 251 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
M. Rama Rao, Eastern Calukyan Temples of Andhra Desa (1964), p. 11 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Robert Sewell, Lists of the Antiquarian Remains in the Presidency of Madras, Vol. I (1882), p. 25, s.v. Drakshārāmam (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
E. Hultzsch, South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I (1890), No. 39, Chellur plates of Vira-Choda, p. 60 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Hultzsch, South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I (1890), p. 61 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
E. Hultzsch, “Pithapuram Pillar Inscription of Prithvisvara”, Epigraphia Indica IV (1897), p. 33 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Hultzsch, “Pithapuram Inscription of Prithvisvara” (1897), p. 36 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Hultzsch, “Pithapuram Inscription of Prithvisvara” (1897), p. 37 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
E. Hultzsch, “Pithapuram Inscription of Mallideva and Manma-Satya II”, Epigraphia Indica IV (1897), p. 86 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²