Early Chalukyan Mahishamardhini Sculpture Found in Siddipet

Hyderabad: A rare sculpture of Mahishamardhini plaque is found at Arepally village in Duddeda mandal,Siddipet district says Sriramoju Haragopal,Convenor ,Kotha Telangana Charitra Brindam . Based on the information given by its members Ahobilam Karunakar ,Vemuganti Murali and Md Naseeruddin, a group consisting A.Prabhakar, Dr.E.Sivanagireddy, S.Jaikishan, Sriramoju Haragopal and Md.Naseeruddin visited Arepalli village on Friday and examined the rare find. According to them, the stone plaque which measured 18x10x2cms in hight,width and thickness is noticed from the inside of the local Venkateswara temple along with a tiny image of Alwar (18th century) and say that the Mahishamardhini sculpture is a rare one and represents the iconographical features such as holding the tail of the devil and trampling its head with the right leg of the goddess, piercing the body of the demon with a Sula and holding Sankhu and Chakra in her additional right and left hands respectively, bereft of head gear and with minimum ornaments in her body revels that the sculpture belongs to the Early Chalukyan period (7 th century CE) and bears historical significoance.

Mr Haragopal says that this is the very first sculpture of Mahishamardhini of the Badami Chalukyan era reported from Telangana so far. Earlier a 5 th century sculpture of Mahishamardhini sculpture was recovered from Keesaragutta Excavations and one more of the same period was discovered at Panagal by Dr.E.Sivanagireddy and D.Suryakumar recently .

The team also examined the 9th century CE Jain Chaumukh coated with colours and kept in front of the Venkateswara temple.

Haragopal and the team appealed the villagers of Arepally to preserve it for posterity as it represents the Badami Chalukyan art style and iconography.