Macherla

Macherla lies in the west of the Palnadu, about eleven miles south-west of Gurazala. Robert Sewell, who passed through it in 1879, called it “a well-built, prosperous town” with fine temples.¹ Gordon Mackenzie (1883) called it “the ancient capital of the Palnad heroes, where are very numerous remains of antiquity”.² He noted that Sewell listed nine inscriptions there, dating back as far as 1249.²

The inscription of 1111

The Naga pillar in the courtyard of the Chennakesavasvamin temple has a Sanskrit and Telugu record of the chief Beta.³ It is dated Saka 1033 (1111; Saka is an Indian way of counting years).³ Beta was the son of Virakama, “the second of the four sons of Chagi Beta of the lunar race of Kartaviryarjuna”.³ The record gives land to the temple of Adityesvara, built “at the capital town Mahadevi-tataka” by a certain Aditya.³

V. Rangacharya summarised the Government Epigraphist’s report on it.³ He noted that its engravers were Kannada speakers.³ The Epigraphist took this as a sign of Western Chalukya influence in the region, and found the record interesting for its account of building methods.³

The Annual Report on Epigraphy for 1932–33 took this Beta to be the Haihaya chief named in an inscription of 1129 at Gurazala.⁴ Chilukuri Veerabhadra Rao (1912) cited the same record, calling the place Mahadevicherla.⁵ See the Haihayas of Kona and Palnadu and Gurazala.

In the ballad

The ballad of the Palnadu heroes opens at “a city called Pala Machapuram”.⁶ Sewell identified this city with Macherla.⁶ He thought the epithet Pala, “milk”, might refer to the creamy marble of the district.⁶

Later in the story Brahma Nayudu breaks with the court at Gurazala.¹ He takes the young princes and the people of ninety villages.¹ They build “a splendid new city, which they called Macharla, on the banks of the Chandravanka”, with magnificent temples to Vishnu and Siva.¹ See Brahma Nayudu. Rangacharya called Macherla “the capital city of the Palnad heroes”.³

Footnotes

1. Sewell, Lists of Antiquarian Remains, Vol. I (1882), Appendix A, p. vi and note 1 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. Gordon Mackenzie, A Manual of the Kistna District (1883), p. 161 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

3. V. Rangacharya, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency, Vol. II (1919), p. 812, No. 536 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

4. Annual Report on South-Indian Epigraphy for 1932–33 (1936), Part II, para. 12, p. 59 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

5. Chilukuri Veerabhadra Rao, Andhrula Charitramu, Part II (1912), p. 196 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). In Telugu. ↩

6. Robert Sewell, Lists of the Antiquarian Remains in the Presidency of Madras, Vol. I (1882), Appendix A, p. ii and note 2 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³