Elements of Hindu Iconography v2.c15.13

v2.c15.13

Let us take first the Āgamānta or the Śuddha Śaiva sect. In the Āgamānta Śaiva works it is stated that the Śaivas flourished in a place called Mantrakāḷi situated on the banks of the Gōdāvarī river, that there were four *maṭhas*, beginning with the Āmarddaka *maṭha*, surrounding the temple of Mantrakāḷēśvara, that when Rājēndrachōḷa went to the Ganges on his victorious march in the north he met there these Śaivas, whom he, on his way back to his capital, induced to come and settle down in his kingdom and that from that time