Governor writes to State, Centre to protect ancient Devuni Gutta temple

The Governor requested the governments to take steps for renovation and restoration of the 800-year-old ‘Devuni Gutta’ temple by the Archaeology Survey of India (ASI).

Mulugu: With a view to protect and preserve the ancient temple ‘Devuni Gutta’, situated on a hillock on the outskirts of the Kothur village of Mulugu mandal, Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan wrote to the State and Central governments on a request by history and archaeology enthusiast Aravind Arya Pakide. In the letter addressed Secretary, Ministry of Culture, and Chief Secretary of Telangana, the governor requested the governments to take steps for renovation and restoration of the 800-year-old ‘Devuni Gutta’ temple by the Archaeology Survey of India (ASI).

She stressed on the need for the maintenance of the temple, the historical and cultural monument should be handed over to the ASI. “Three-dimensional mapping of the monument should be taken up so as to facilitate future renovation and restoration works and proper research and documentation of the temple by the authorities of the State Archaeology or the ASI,” she added.  It may be recalled that ‘Telangana Today’ published several news stories highlighting the need to protect this temple which is akin to the world-famous Angkor Wat temples of Combodia.

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Dr Corinna Wessels Mevissen, a world renowned  scholar of Indian Art History from Germany visited the Devuni Gutta temple in 2017. She said that the temple and published a research paper in an international research journal.

Meanwhile, Professor Adam Hardy, an architectural historian and Professor of Asian Architecture at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, UK, and Director of PRASADA, a centre bringing together research and practice in South Asian art and architecture, along with Aravind Arya Pakide visited the temple in 2019.

In 2017 itself, the then Assistant Director of Archaeology and Museums, Warangal, Gillella Ganga Devi visited the temple submitted a report to the State government stressing the need to conserve the temple, but no measures were taken so far. The rock on which and of which the shrine is built consists of sandstone, cut into dressed blocks. These are closely fitted, and were it not for traces of mortar one would assume the masonry to be dry.

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