Amararama
Amaralingeswara Swamy temple is located in Amararama which is one of the Pancharama Kshetras which is located at Amaravati town near Guntur City in Andhra Pradesh in southern India. Lord Shiva is known as Amareswara Swamy or Amaralingeswara Swamy here. The temple is situated on the southern bank of Krishna River. The consort of Lord Amareswara Swamy is Bala Chamundika. The Sivalinga at this place is installed and established by Lord Indra. The temple is closed between 1PM and 4PM everyday.
The Sivalinga here is very tall that the archakas mount a pedestal platform, and perform the daily rituals as well as Abhisheka. The top of the Linga has a red stain on it. It is said that Sivalinga was growing up in size and to stop its growth, a nail has been hit onto the top of the Sivalinga. When the nail dug into the Linga, blood started to ooze from the Sivalinga it seems. The stain can be see even today.
Vasireddy Venkatadri Naidu, King of Chintapalli and later Dharanikota, was a great devotee of Amaralingeswara. He expanded and renovated the temple. The popular legend has it that once during the course of putting down a rebellion in his land the King had to have recourse to a massacre of the Chenchus, whereupon he lost his mental peace, which he regained only when he came to Amaravati. He shifted his place from Chintapalli to Amaravati in 1796, and devoted his entire life, time and revenues to building temples for Lord Siva. He renovated the Amareswaraswamy temple here, engaged nine learned archakas for the daily archana of the Lord, and provided them with all the needs of livelihood, including 12 acres (49,000 m2) of land to each. The temple as it stands owes much to him.
Amaravati temple has also a wealth of inscriptions on its walls like those of the Kota chiefs of Arnaravati and of Sri Krishandevaraya, the great Vijayanagara emperor. On a pillar in the Mukhamantapa the wife of Proli Nayudu, who was minister of Kota King Ketaraja, has left an inscription.
The main festivals in the temple are the Mahashivaratri, which comes in the Magha Bahula Dasami and the Navaratri and the Kalyana Utsavas. Amaravati is thus an important Kshetra situated at a particularly sacred spot of the holy river Krishna and is a consecrated place of worship, of importance to both Buddhism and Hinduism.
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Wikipedia