South India tops the region when it comes to ancient temple architecture and sculpture, and among south Indian states, Telangana is one of those states that has lot many beautiful, eye-catching temples with vivid colors and designs. A place with an interesting structure has been attracting millions of visitors every year, but since there are numerous such places, one still misses out on many, Here is one such place which is not far from the city, Hyderabad.
This particular temple is located at Hanamkonda, Warangal. The temple is none other than “Thousand pillar temple, “one of the most visited places in Warangal. The temple was constructed almost 900 years before in the year 1162-1163 AD by the great Prataparudradeva I / Rudradeva and the deity is Rudreshwara Swamy, an incarnation of Lord Shiva.
This particular temple has a rich and ancient history dating back to the Chalukyan era. Stating that this is a 900-year-old temple, the fine design, and structure is marvelous and the finest specimen of Kakatiya architecture, a perfect example of the typical chalukyan style architecture. Considering the amount of time, the temple has survived, the structure itself has gone through so many historical events, and in this passage of time, this has also lost its corners including a few pillars or the so-called tower, one such lost tower is Gopuram was knocked down by vandal invaders.
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Now you may ask about the corners with the most stunning details, well which are none other than these pillars themselves that are so beautifully carved, structured, and polished. Talking about the design, the base is a star-shaped design where each shrine is dedicated to one god and those are Rudra (Shiva), Vasudeva (Vishnu), and Surya (Sun) and the fourth one is Nandi faces east unlike other temples where Nandi look west facing Shiva. This is the uniqueness of the temple, along with Nandi, Shiva shrines face east, and rest two face south and west.
Behind Nandi, there is an open space and a hall of 300 columns called Kalyan mandapam. Though there are supposed to be 1000 pillars on the premises still the structure is designed in a way where none of the pillars obstructs any visitors to view the deity of another temple.
The stone structure is made up of coarse-grained granite and dolerite. The Nandi is made up of huge granite rock measuring six feet in height. The elephant sits side by side with the main shrine with a height of 6 feet. The design is so rich that one would not be able to take off their eyes. One thing to notice is that the entire temple has no deities except Lingam in one of them. One can also see the ornament chiseled and carved on Nandi. What a view it will be.
The temple has a huge footfall daily and the place offers a good number of tourist attractions with a footfall of 1500-1600 every day making this one of the most visited temples in the city. I would highly recommend visiting this beauty.
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