01Shiva and Yama side by side
The temple’s katha says that so many souls found liberation by Mukteswara’s grace here that Yama, the lord of death, had no work left and came to complain. Shiva asked him to sit beside him as a linga, so that pilgrims would worship Yama first and then Shiva. The two lingas, Kaleswara and Mukteswara, stand side by side on one pitha. The Mukteswara linga has two holes in it; water poured into them is said to flow underground to the river sangam.
02Trilinga and the Pushkaram
Old writers explained the name Telugu from Trilinga, the land bounded by three lingas at Srisailam, Draksharamam and Kaleshwaram. The confluence here is held to be a Triveni, the Godavari and Pranhita joined by the hidden Saraswati. Every twelve years, when Brihaspati enters Simha, the Godavari Pushkaram brings vast crowds to bathe at the ghats below the temple; the Pranhita Pushkaram is held here too.
The life of this place
- 2015Godavari Pushkaram draws lakhs to the ghats at Kaleshwaram.
About 125 km east of Karimnagar in forest country near the Maharashtra border; road access via Manthani or Mahadevpur.
