1,000-year-old sculpture of poet found in Jangaon

Warangal: Historian R. Rathnakar Reddy on Saturday unearthed a sculpture of a poet, estimated to be around 1,000 years old, on the outskirts of Ibrahimpur in Lakshmi thanda of Raghunathpally mandal in Jangaon district. The idol was being worshipped like that of a god by some people.

He said that the sculpture belonged to the Shaivite religion. “There is a bell in the right hand and ‘talapatra’ in the left hand, a necklace with valuable stones and another which has a seed in the shape of a ‘lingam’,” he said.

Locals believe that Palakurthy Somanath, who lived in the region from 1160 to 1240, spread the Shaivite tradition, After his death, people started to worship him in the form of the Shiva Linga at the Palakurthi Somanatha temple.

A few sculptures of poets were also found at the Ganapeshwaralyam and Kotagallu temples, constructed by the Ganapathi Devudu of the Kakatiya dynasty in 1213 at what is now Ghanpur mandal in Jayashankar Bhulpally mandal.

“Every sculpture of the poet at that temple has a necklace with a seed which is in the form of Shiva Linga,” the historian observed, adding: “After thorough observations of these sculptures, it is evident that the people of 12th and 13th centuries used to give much importance to the poets and used to worship them like gods.”