imprisonment for life, and sent him to the fort of Gooty in the Anantapur district,1[1] where so many of the rebels of the Northern Circars ended their days.
Srungavarapukota, the taluk liead-quarters, is a union of 5,862 inhabitauts, most uf wliom live in indifferent huts. It was once the residence of the Mukki family referred to just above and the remains of their old fort are still visible.
The local goddess, Yerakamma, is another deification of a woman who committed sati. Ballads are sung about her which say that she was the child of Dasari parents and that her birth was foretold by a Terukala woman (whence her name) who prophesied that she would have the gift of second sight. She eventually married, and one day she begged her husband not to go to his field, as she was sure he would be killed by a tiger if he did. Her husband went notwithstanding, and was slain as she had foreseen. She committed sati on the spot where her shrine still stands, and at this there is a festival at Sivaratri.
Two miles west of the town, at the foot of an outlying spur of the hills called Punyagiri, is a garden belonging to the Vizianagram estate. A fliglit of steps said to have been built by one of the Rajas leads up the In 11 to a wooded gully in which is a quaint shrine to Dhara Gangarama consisting of a boulder poised on two others between which trickles a small stream. A festival takes place here at Sivaratri and the people then crowd to bathe in this. Further up, the stream tumbles over a little fall which is held sacred and under which the bones of the dead are placed.
- ↑ 1 Asiatic Journal (1833), xii, 172-3.
