Gautamesvara Temple, Manthani

Detail

• Gopalakrishna Murthy writes that the temple was raised in the reign of Pratapa Rudra. He describes a trikuta, a temple of three shrines, of the thousand-pillared type, built of reddish-white sandstone.Gopalakrishna Murthy 1964
• In his description, the plan resembled the Tarakesvara temple at Hangal. A star-shaped mandapa stood at the start of a long platform that led to the common hall of the three shrines.Gopalakrishna Murthy 1964
• Small shrines were set on either side of the antechambers of two of the three shrines. Gopalakrishna Murthy sees this as a late change that took the minor shrine, a Hoysala ornament, into the main temple.Gopalakrishna Murthy 1964
• The architraves carry dancing Brahma, Ganapati, Nataraja, Kali and Vishnu, each with eight hands. The outer walls show Narasimha tearing out the intestines of the demon, naginis, chowrie bearers, Varuna on his yali and Brahma. A perforated stone plate at the doorway of one shrine carries seated Jain sculptures.Gopalakrishna Murthy 1964
• Telangana – Land and People also describes the temple as built of red sandstone and of the thousand-pillared kind.Goel et al. 2022
• The Hyderabad Archaeological Department described the ruins in its report for 1927-28. The walls that remained were carved with the incarnations of Vishnu and other deities, and the pillars and stones of a mandapa in front lay in a confused heap. Two parts of the temple were still in worship, one of them dedicated to Sarasvati.Nizam Archaeological Report 1927-28
• The report adds that the soft stone of the Gautamesvara and Silesvara temples had worn very badly, and that the temples of Manthani were too far destroyed for conservation to be recommended.Nizam Archaeological Report 1927-28
• According to a local tradition recorded in the same report, the sage Gautama meditated at Manthani, which is therefore also called Gautamitalam. The Brahmins of the village gave its old name as Mantrapurani, a seat of learning.Nizam Archaeological Report 1927-28
• Manthani appears in the inscriptions as Mantrakuta. Inscriptions name Manthanya Gunda as its lord, and the Kakatiya genealogies say that Prola II killed him.Epigraphia Telanganica 2023
• An inscription of 26 December 1199, the first regnal year of Ganapati Deva, stands on a pillar in the Hanuman temple near Tamma cheruvu. With the king’s consent, a chief granted land to the king’s priest Manchibhattopadhyaya, who founded a village and a tank and set up temples of Kesava and Mahadeva.Epigraphia Telanganica 2023
• The 1927-28 report also noted an inscribed pillar in Nagari script, buried in the floor of the Prachina Hanuman temple, that refers to Ganapati Deva.Nizam Archaeological Report 1927-28

Historical photographs

These photographs were published a century or more ago. They show the monument as it stood before later repair and restoration.