Umamahesvaram

Umamahesvaram is a shrine of Siva and Parvati on a hill about two miles from the village of Rangapuram. Rangapuram lies five or six miles from Achampet in the Mahbubnagar district. P. Sreenivasachar published its inscriptions in 1956, and he described it as a shrine well known as the northern gateway of Srisailam.¹ The 1910 chronicle of the Velugoti family places the same temple in the Amarabad taluk.²

The inscriptions

The Corpus of 1956 prints nine inscriptions from the site, Nos. Mn. 35 to 43.¹³⁴⁵ They were found on pillars, slabs and rocks in and around three temples:¹³⁴⁵

• the Umamahesvara temple¹³⁴⁵
• the Adi-Umamahesvara temple to its left¹³⁴⁵
• the temple of Lower Umamahesvaram, a mile and a half away¹³⁴⁵

The most important is a Telugu and Sanskrit record of the Recherla chief Mada (Madhava) Nayaka of Devarakonda.¹⁶ It records that he built a pavilion for the god Mahesvara in Saka 1298 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years), the year Nala, in the month Phalguna (early 1377).¹⁶ It also gives a long genealogy of his family.¹⁶ See the Umamahesvaram inscription of Mada Nayaka and Mada Nayaka.

Alladi Jagannatha Sastri’s family history of 1922 calls Mada’s work “a huge rock-temple” at “a holy place at the northern foot of Srisailam”.⁷ The volume Epigraphia Telanganica also lists a Sanskrit inscription on a pillar of the temple’s hall.⁸ It records the installation of images of Parvati, Nandi and Kesava by a follower of the ascetic Sadananda.⁸ It is dated either Saka 1320 (1398) or Saka 1520.⁸

Footnotes

1. P. Sreenivasachar (ed.), A Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts of Andhra Pradesh, Part III (1956), p. 72, No. Mn. 35 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

2. Vellala Sadasiva Sastri, Velugotivari Vamsacaritramu (1910), appendix, p. 31, inscription No. 10 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Telugu; paraphrased. ↩

3. Sreenivasachar (ed.), Corpus, Part III (1956), pp. 78–80, Nos. Mn. 36–38 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Sreenivasachar (ed.), Corpus, Part III (1956), p. 84, Nos. Mn. 40–41 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

5. Sreenivasachar (ed.), Corpus, Part III (1956), p. 91, Nos. Mn. 42–43 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

6. Sreenivasachar (ed.), Corpus, Part III (1956), p. 73, No. Mn. 35 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. Alladi Jagannatha Sastri, A Family History of Venkatagiri Rajas (1922), p. 24 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

8. Gajjala Vasanta Lakshmi (ed.), Epigraphia Telanganica, vol. 4 (2023), p. 33, No. 15. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³