Pallakolu

Palakollu lies in the Godavari delta of coastal Andhra, among rice fields and canals a short way from the sea. Its temple of Ksheerarama is one of the five Pancharama shrines of Shiva, and its lingam, the stone pillar that represents the god, is said to be milk-white. Pilgrims have long come to the sanctuary, which gives the town one of its older names, Ksheerarama.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the surrounding country, ruled from Golconda by the Qutb Shahi sultans, wove cotton cloth for the Coromandel trade, including dyed calico sent through Masulipatnam. In 1613 the Dutch set up a trading post at Palakollu, buying textiles, lamp oil, timber, tiles and bricks. A severe drought in the Krishna and Godavari deltas around 1770 shrank the weavers' trade, and in 1824 the town passed to the British for good.