Jogulamba Temple

The Jogulamba Temple at Alampur stands near the confluence of the Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers in the northern Deccan. Jogulamba, whose name means Mother of Yogis in Telugu, is shown seated on a corpse with a scorpion, frog and lizard above her head.

Her shrine is counted fifth among the eighteen Maha Shakta Pithas; tradition holds that the upper teeth of Sati fell here when Vishnu dismembered her body. It shares its enclosure with the nine Navabrahma Shiva temples, raised in the seventh and eighth centuries under the Badami Chalukyas.

In 1390 Bahmani armies sacked and largely destroyed the temple, although the Vijayanagara emperor Harihara Raya II counter-attacked and fortified the complex. The priests had already carried Jogulamba's image to the nearby Bala Brahma temple, where it was worshipped in a secluded chamber for more than six centuries.