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Introduction The village of Lepakshi is located at the south-western corner of Andhra Pradesh, at its border with Karnataka. The otherwise nondescript village is now well known for the beautiful temple of Veerabhadra Swamy and its monolithic Nandi (bull; Basava locally). The temple belongs to the Vijayanagara school of architecture. The construction of the temple is attributed to Virupanna Nayaka and Viranna who were officers of King Achyutaraya of Penukonda. The construction is dated to the first half of the 16th century. Inside the Veerabhadra Swamy Temple The Veerabhadra temple can be divided in to two sections - the outer enclave and the inner enclave. The inner enclave further has the main temple, the Nagalinga section and the western pillars. -x-x-x- The Outer Enclave The temple complex has a double enclosure. The outer enclosure has a square plan with three gates - northern, eastern and western. The northern gate has a tower and is the main entry gate for the tem...

Introduction The Vijayanagara Empire flourished at Hampi and the legacy has made it a major site for the Vijayanagara school of architecture. However, in terms of the striking intricacy of the sculptures, Hampi may have been beaten by the temples at Tadipatri some 200km away. The temples here are almost contemporary to those at Hampi, but built by their Pemmasani Naidu feudatories. The majestic gopuram of the Bugga Ramlingeshwara Temple -x-x-x- Tadipatri Impressions The town of Tadipatri is located on the southern bank of the Pennar river. The river here mostly resembles a dry, uneven depression throughout the year owing to a dam upstream. The area around Tadipatri is marked with dark depressions left behind by the quarries of Kadapa stone (black limestone). An amusing side-effect of the stone mines is that most of the shanties here are actually made of discarded slabs of these stones. The town itself is quite busy and is a centre of industrial a...

Introduction Tucked away in the remoteness of the Telugu-hinterland, lies a sight that has the potential to humble man before the glory and raw power of the natural order. The river Pennar (also Penna, Penneru), originating near the Nandi Hills in Karnataka, winds its way first north and then east towards the Bay of Bengal and carves out a gorge as it passes the Erramala hills of central Andhra Pradesh. The southern wall of the gorge was the site of the medieval fortress of Gandikota - literally a fort ( kote ) on a gorge ( gandi ).   The Gorge of the Pennar at Gandikota Gandikota, today, is a remote place with spartan infrastructure and spotty connectivity. Nevertheless, this is a place which has to be visited, if not for the history, then only to be humbled by the power of nature to shape our lives. -x-x-x- The Gandikota Fort The Gandkota fort originated as a simple fortification on the southern side of the gorge in the eleventh century, at...