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Appikonda Someswara temple

Ancient temple of visakhapatnam.

VISAKHAPATNAM: Located within the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) limits, between the picturesque Yarada Beach and Tikkavanipalem beach is an ancient Somalingeswara Temple that is also known as the Appikonda Beach Temple.

The temple complex houses four shrines housing four Lingas and boasts of a life size sculpture of Nandi the bull carved out of a single large black granite stone. While the main temple has been given a modern touch by the endowments department, two of the smaller temples have been reduced to rubble and the fourth is in shambles.

A classic example of a beach temple built by the kings of peninsular India, the rough-cut stone temple was built between 1070 AD and 1120 AD during the reign of Kullotunga Chalukya-Chola and is often referred to as a Chola monument, although the later Cholas, including Kullotungas, were of the Eastern Chalukya dynasty and were Cholas only from their maternal side. Much has been said about the Dravidian influence, in architectural terms, on the Appikonda Temple, but the porches and mandapams are not unique to the Chola style of architecture and are more Nagara-Dravidian in style.

"All ancient architectural styles were interconnected. Look at the plan of the temple towns in the south and temples per se. They very closely resemble the structure plan of the Indus Valley civilisation. In fact, the whole division between Nagara, Dravidian and pre-Islamic North Indian styles of architecture is basically an artificial construct," said architecture buff RM Sastry.

Apart from the architecture, another special feature of the temple is that it is one of the few temples where Shivratri has been celebrated over 800 years without any disruptions.

Appikonda was also one of the first major Brahmin settlements, where the large tracts of land were not just allotted to the upkeep of the temple but also to Brahmins, chiefly Advaitis (followers of Shankaracharya) and has for more than 800 years continued to remain a Brahmin stronghold. Appikonda was a Mokhasa (estate) traditionally held by a Brahmin family, which lost rights over it only after 1952.

Just like most beach Shiva temples, the Appikonda temple too, especially the main mandapam, had stone carvings and inscriptions depicting the Shiva-Ravana myth, when Ravana failed to carry Lord Shiva's atmalinga to Sri Lanka beyond the ocean thanks to the intervention of Lord Ganesha, but has now been completely obliterated by the modernization efforts of the endowments department.

History buff B S Mahesh said, "This (the temple) was also an effort by the Chalukya-Cholas to relocate the Ramayana myth from Tamil Nadu. There are certain schools of thought that believe that the Ramayana region could actually have been located in the Godavari region and to the north of it. Hence, even today small islets are referred to as Lankas in Telugu."

He added that followers of this school of thought also believe that the Ramayana geographic region was relocated to Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka during the early Chola period. Trying to prove his point, Mahesh said, "Sri Lanka was never referred to as Lanka in ancient texts. It was always known as Sinhala and during the colonial period was known as Ceylon."

Today, cement concrete pillars have been introduced in the temple by the endowments department, which has also used cement to plaster the structure. Modern day tiles also adorn the floors, thereby ruining the timeless beauty of the heritage structure.

-- Located close to the Gangavaram Port and Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, the Appikonda temple is located at an isolated spot, making it unsafe, especially for women to venture there alone Once a Brahmin settlement, Appikonda is now a fishing village with hardly any Brahmins