PAMIDI - BHOGESWARA AALAYAM

This Aalaya was first built by Lord Parasuram at the foot of the hill called Simhagiri and installed the icons of Gouri and Shankar along with Kesavaswami. Lured by the sanctity of the place, Agasthya, Rishyasringa and Simhagiri Bhat performed penance and got their desires fulfilled by the grace of Lord Siva. As the story goes, one cowherd once observed one of his cows standing over an ant-hill and allowing its milk flow down into it. When he was about to beat it with his axe, there came a voice in ringing tones dissuading him to leave it unharmed, and also inform his master to build an Aalaya for Lord Bhogeswaraswamy; for, He was there dwelling in it for long. The same night the master too had the same dream.

On the next day when the master removed the ant-hill, he found a big size Sivalinga encircled by a serpent on a huge Panavatta. Deeming it auspicious, he built the Aalaya, and also another one for Mother Parvathi. Again he was instructed in his dream by Adisesha to build a small hamlet around, and name it Seshagrandhipuram. He implemented the divine injunction implicitly.

The Sivalinga is about five feet in height and it is self manifested. As the serpent entwined the Sivalinga, it was appropriately called Bhogeswaralinga. The Aalaya is adorned with beautiful sculptural representations of all gods, like Nandi, Navagrahas, Vinayaka etc. With the passage of time it attained great eminence as a great Saiva kshetra.

It lies in Pamidi, at a distance of 16 km to Gutti in the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh.

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