Chejarla is a village in Guntur district of the

Indian state India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, with a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions. History Pre-indepen ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. It is located in Nekarikallu mandal of

Narasaraopet revenue division Narasaraopet revenue division is an administrative division in the Palnadu district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It comprises 9 mandals and is one of the three revenue divisions in the district, along with Gurajala and Sattenapalli ...

History

The village stands in the plains and is surrounded by a rocky hills and is covered by scrub jungle. The temple here is dedicated to Lord Siva and dates to the 4th or 5th century AD. The deity is called Kapotheswara.

Buddhism

This story is a renowned one not only, in Hindu mythology, but also in the Buddhist

Jataka tales The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. According to Peter Skilling, this genre is ...

, which give us the lives of Siddhartha, the Buddha, in his previous ''Janmas''.
The Sibi Jataka is as hoary and sacred to the Buddhist, as an embodiment of 'Saranagata vatsala', as Sibi Chakravarti is to the Hindu, as a supreme symbol of 'Raja Dharma' which enjoins a king to protect the refugee even at the cost of his own life. It was a Buddhist Monastery later converted to a Hindu Shrine as per Historical evidences found.

Hinduism

This is probably the only temple in the whole of India dedicated to Lord Siva as Kapotheswara. The deity is in Lingakara. Here Siva is represented as Kapotheswara, Lord Sibi who gave a portion of his own body in order to save a pigeon that took refuge with him. Curiously, in the imago of the Linga there are even today large cavities as if portions have been scooped or cut out, and these are said to be the places of the body, from which the Lord cut off his own flesh, in order to save the life of the Kapotha. The image is said to be the image of the 'Kalebara' of Sibi, with the head cut off, and on top of the Linga, there are still two large vertical cavities. One of these cavities helps to drain off the Abhisheka Tirtha to an unknown place and even today the smell of raw flesh and blood comes out of this since the God here is a very powerful one. The temple is of the greatest importance to us from the point of view of temple architecture. There are, as is well known, three types of temple

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

Apsidal Temple

Amvar Chejerla Kapoteswara temple in guntur district

The temple of Chezerla is a rare exception and this is a temple on the

Apsidal In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

model. This Apsidal plan and barrel vaulted structure, is classified in the VastuSastras, as 'Hasti prasta' or elephant back. These were originally

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

Chaityas and were readjusted for the purpose of Hindu worship, by the introduction of internal walls and upper store to seclude the Garbha Griha from the rest of the building. The end of the temple takes the form of an apse and in its centre is a white marble Linga. The fact that the temple is sacred to Buddhism and Hinduism and is built in a unique style, the temple must have come into existence, at a period of mutual tolerance between Hinduism and Buddhism. A famous

inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the w ...

in the temple further supports this. A similar temple is the

Trivikrama Temple The Trivikrama Temple, also named Ter Temple, is a temple of Vamana (an incarnation of Vishnu) in Ter, Maharashtra. Henry Cousens, followed by most later writers, believed that it was originally a Buddhist temple, however in 1957 M. S. Mate disput ...

Ter, Maharashtra Ter is a village in Osmanabad district of Maharashtra state, India. It is from the district headquarters, Osmanabad, from Latur. History The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' mentions a trading centre called Tagara, which has been ide ...

Governance

Chejerla

gram panchayat Gram Panchayat () is a basic village-governing institute in Indian villages. It is a democratic structure at the grass-roots level in India. It is a political institute, acting as cabinet of the village. The Gram Sabha work as the general bo ...

is the

local self-government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-l ...

of the village. It is divided into wards and each ward is represented by a ward member.

Education

As per the school information report for the academic year 2018–19, the village has a total of 3 Zilla Parishad/ MPP schools.

References

{{reflist Villages in Guntur district Buddhism in India