RAMA SINGHWARAM CAVE

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

A man-made rock chamber or small chapel with a cupola from which ribs descended to the girdle; the lingum [lingam] was a solid piece of rock but decomposing very fast [VOYSEY 1850b: 298]. SITUATION: At a somewhat interesting location 13.5 miles (21.7 km) or 9 miles (14.5 km) if not 13.5 + 9 miles (27.5 km) in an unspecified direction from Ellore or Eluru (note 1). VOYSEY (1850b: 298): I left Ellore on the 19th February [1820] at six in the morning for Rama Singwaram [note 2] 13 1/2 miles : for the first two or three miles opencountry and thin cultivation on the soil common to the neighbourhood of Ellore. It was succeeded by red soil and pisiform iron ore, similar to that covering the iron clay, at times large pieces of a conglomerate resembling the iron clay [laterite] of Midnapore [note 3] and red iron ore. February 20th, 1820.— After travelling from four in the morning I arrived at this village nine miles distant. On my arrival at sunrise I ascended the hill … I found the rock to besandstone, the cement lithomarge, which was also found in it in large and small amorphous masses, together with jaspery and red iron ore; rounded pebbles of quartz were intermixed, and it strongly resembled the rock of Yellapooram [note 4] and the country around, containing in it those linear shells [note 5] of a black ferrugineous substance and presenting in no instance appearances of straatification. CAVE DESCRIPTION (VOYSEY 1850b: 298): One part of the rock which I visited and which had been hollowed out artificially was studded with bits of lithomarge white and pink, and had the projections which I mentioned as having been observed on my march to Jellapoorun [sic! probably for: Yellapooram or Yellapur N14°58': E074°43'], the dome was an excavation in the rock forming a small chapel with a cupola from which ribs descended to the girdle; the lingum [lingam] was a solid piece of rock but decomposing very fast. I observed in my evening's walk two large trees growing near the tan, of the Strychnos potentarum.sandstone, the cement lithomarge, which was also found in it in large and small amorphous masses, together with jaspery and red iron ore; rounded pebbles of quartz were intermixed, and it strongly resembled the rock of Yellapooram [note 4] and the country around, containing in it those linear shells [note 5] of a black ferrugineous substance and presenting in no instance appearances of straatification. CAVE DESCRIPTION (VOYSEY 1850b: 298): One part of the rock which I visited and which had been hollowed out artificially was studded with bits of lithomarge white and pink, and had the projections which I mentioned as having been observed on my march to Jellapoorun [sic! probably for: Yellapooram or Yellapur N14°58': E074°43'], the dome was an excavation in the rock forming a small chapel with a cupola from which ribs descended to the girdle; the lingum [lingam] was a solid piece of rock but decomposing very fast. I observed in my evening's walk two large trees growing near the tan, of the Strychnos potentarum.