Draksharamam is in the Godavari delta of coastal Andhra, about forty kilometres from Pithapuram, and the two are named two lines apart in the hymn. The goddess stands inside the Bhimeswara compound, a two-storeyed Eastern Chalukya temple raised around a very tall linga, set in a walled enclosure that reads more like a fort than a shrine and carrying several hundred inscriptions in Telugu and Sanskrit — one of the richest epigraphic sites in the delta, and a working archive of medieval land grants as much as a place of worship. Draksharamam is also one of the five Pancharama kshetras, the Shiva circuit of coastal Andhra, so like Srisailam and Pithapuram it belongs to two enumerations at once. But the thing about this town that a reader should hold on to is its name. The verse calls the place Dakshavatika, Daksha's garden, and the local tradition takes that at its word: this, it says, is where Daksha held the sacrifice he did not invite Shiva to — the sacrifice at which Sati died and from which every one of these eighteen seats follows. The northern tradition places that sacrifice at Kankhal near Haridwar and has a temple there saying so. This corpus records both and settles neither.

Claims, and where they come from

• Draksharamam is one of the eighteen Shakti Peethas of the recited enumeration, named twelfth, and the goddess there is Manikyamba. — Aṣṭādaśa Śakti Pīṭha Stotra (traditionally attributed to Śaṅkarācārya) — Third verse, closing half — ōḍhyāyāṁ girijādēvī, māṇikyā dakṣavāṭikē — so Jajpur and Draksharamam are named in one line and this corpus holds both. The verse calls the place Dakshavatika, not Draksharamam; the equation is the circuit's, and unlike the Pradyumna of member 3 it is supported by the town's own name being read as a contraction of it. The attribution of the hymn to Shankaracharya is traditional; this corpus writes attributed to rather than composed by
• No limb of Sati is assigned to this site by the enumeration that names it. — The structure of the stotra itself — The eighteen carry no limb assignments. The left cheek, given for Draksharamam almost everywhere, belongs to the separate fifty-one-peetha convention, and no passage from that literature naming Draksharamam was located from this session. Reported as what circulates, not asserted
• The local tradition identifies this town as the ground of Daksha's sacrifice; a northern tradition identifies Kankhal near Haridwar. — Two sthala traditions, recorded against each other — The southern claim rests on the place-name — Dakshavatika, Daksha's garden, read as the origin of Draksharamam — and on a spot within the town shown to pilgrims as the yajna ground. The northern claim rests on long usage and on the Daksheshwara Mahadeva temple at Kankhal, whose present structure is nineteenth-century on a much older site. No text reached from this session settles the question, and nothing about the peetha's own standing turns on it: the verse names the town as Dakshavatika either way
• The Bhimeswara temple is Eastern Chalukya work of the ninth to tenth century and carries several hundred medieval inscriptions. — Modern art-historical and epigraphic record — The foundation is attributed to the Eastern Chalukya king Bhima; the temple is two-storeyed with the linga rising through both floors, and a later mandapa is credited to an Eastern Ganga patron. The inscription count is carried as received — figures in the several hundreds are given consistently, and none of the accounts reached from this session cites the epigraphical volume it would come from, so this corpus reports the order of magnitude and names no number
• Draksharamam is one of the five Pancharama kshetras of coastal Andhra. — The Pancharama pilgrimage tradition — A separate Shiva enumeration, listing Amararama, Draksharama, Ksheerarama, Somarama and Bhimarama. It is recorded here because it is the third time in this tranche that a member of the eighteen turns out to belong to another list as well, and because a pilgrim reaching Draksharamam is usually on one circuit or the other

Counted among

• The Shakti Peethas — Sati's body fell across the subcontinent — and the tradition has never agreed on how many pieces, or on how many shrines.

Questions to explore

• This town's name says Daksha's garden, and a temple at Kankhal a thousand miles north says the sacrifice happened there. Does it matter to a pilgrim where the story physically took place?
• Draksharamam belongs to the eighteen peethas and to the five Pancharamas at once, as Srisailam belongs to the peethas and the jyotirlingas. Do these circuits share sites by accident, or were they built on each other?
• The compound holds several hundred medieval inscriptions, most of them about land and grants. What does it change to know that a temple was also an archive?