Pallava Architecture, Part I (MASI 17) c2.112

c2.112

(14) Bhairavakonda.—While at Udayagiri in the Nellore district in December 1920, I was fortunate in discovering an important and hitherto unknown group of rock-cut temples excavated in a rocky hill locally known as Bhairavakonda, 28 miles north-west of Udayagiri and a difficult place to reach owing to lack of roads in this part of the district. The temples are situated at the upper end of a picturesque ravine down which a little stream flows over rocks and boulders to the plains below. At the eastern end of the ravine, standing on a big granite rock which slopes down to the stream, is a small stone-built temple set up over a boulder on which is carved a crude image of Bhairava [Plate XIV (b)]. It appears to be an ancient little structure and is in use as a place of worship, but it is of no particular archæological interest. Just below it, cut in the western face of the rock and facing the stream is a group of little rock-cut memorial shrines set up by pious devotees to commemorate their visit to this holy spot. They are very small, about 2 feet square on plan and 3 feet in height and most of them contain little lingas hewn out of the natural rock. The only one of any real interest is situated at the south end of the sloping rock. This one has two carved panels, one on each side of the entrance to the shrine which contains a small rock-cut linga and an inscription over the little doorway. One panel contains the figure of Brahma and the other a four-armed figure of Vishnu. I had estampages taken of all the inscriptions found at Bhairavakonda and forwarded the same to Mr. Krishna Sastri, the Government Epigraphist, for examination and report. He states that the inscription over the entrance of the little memorial shrine is a record of the early part of the ninth century and records that the shrine was founded by a princess named Lōkama, daughter of a prince named Rājapōrēri and grand-daughter of Goyindapōrēri. He is of opinion that the suffix prōrēri suggests that the princess may have been a member of the Telugu-Chōla family which flourished in the surrounding country about this period.