The second lingum at Caleswarum, visited occasionally by a great concourse of pilgrims, is situated on the spot where Arrowsmith places Callysair Ghaut on the Godavary, and is the same that is described by Captain Blunt, in the seventh volume of the Asiatic Researches, under the name of a Pagoda sacred to Call, standing on the very boundary of Telingana, where the Baun Gunga joins the Godavary.[1]
I have not yet succeeded in establishing to my satisfaction the site of the third lingum, worshipped under the name of Bheemeswara, which I am inclined to believe is the same as Bheema Shenker, the sixth of the twelve Jyotee lingums, enumerated in the Sheev Pooran, and there stated to be situated in the Deccan. The best informed natives give a very vague account of the site of this temple, some asserting it to be in the Northern Circars, where it is known by the name of Dracharamum, others in the western Ghauts, or, as they describe it, “towards Poona.”—A Temple of this name is cursorily mentioned by Dr. Francis Buchanan as standing in the immense chain of hills which runs along the western side of the Peninsula; and, as this is near the southwest junction of the Mahratta, Mysore, and Telingana territories, it is perhaps the third lingum.[2] Be this as it may, the situations of the two other lingums sufficiently evince the correctness of the tradition which describes them as the boundaries of the country termed Tri-lingum, subsequently known to the Mahommedan conquerors of the Deccan under the modified name of Telingana; for the
- ↑ “I might now” says Captain Blunt “be said to have entered upon those parts of India known by the name of Telingana.—The inhabitants of which are called Telingahs and speak a language peculiar to themselves.—This dialect appears to bear a strong resemblance to what in the Circars is called Gentoos.—After the heat of the day, and length of the march, our situation close to the river had a very refreshing and pleasing effect.—I was highly delighted with the romantic view which the confluence of the Godavery and Baun Gunga rivers now presented.—I could see quite up to the fort Suruncha, and an opening beyond it likewise shewed the junction of the Inderwotty river with the latter.—The blue mountains and distant forests which terminated the prospect rendered the whole a very sublime and interesting scene.—There is a small Pagoda sacred to the Hindoo Goddess Cali, situated on the north east bank of the river, at the confluence, which imparts its name to this passage over the Gunga Godavery, called Calesair Chaut, and annually draws a great concourse of pilgrims, who fr,om ideas of purification come to wash in the waters of the confluent streams.”
- ↑ Dr. Buchanan’s travels Vol. III Chapter XVI Page 134—“At Sheraly is a river called Sheraly-tari which comes from a temple on the Ghauts that is termed Bhimesara”—N. B. “Sheraly is placed by Arrowsmith to the South of Onore on the Coast of Canara, under the name of ‘Serowly’—in the latitude of which the boundaries of the three countries abovementioned meet.”
