Godavari Tir Shakti Peeth (Sarvashail)

The story

According to the Shakti Peeth tradition, after King Daksha's yagya Shiv ji wandered in grief carrying the body of Devi Sati. Vishnu ji's Sudarshan chakra then divided the body, and wherever a part or an ornament fell, a Shakti Peeth arose. The Peeth Nirnaya speaks of the cheek falling on the bank of the Godavari, where the Devi is Vishweshi and the Bhairav Dandapani. The Godavari, often called the Ganga of the South, has its own story in this region. A local tradition, linked with the Brahma Purana, says that the sage Gautam lived in this area, at Kovvur, and farmed the land; when a cow died by accident in his field, he did tapasya to Shiv ji, who let the Ganga flow there to purify the place, and so the river came to be called Godavari and Gautami. The Kotilingeshwar temple is believed to go back to the Chalukya period, around the 10th century, and was later rebuilt under the Vijayanagara rulers. Every twelve years the Godavari Pushkaralu draws huge crowds to the ghats of Rajahmundry and of Kovvur across the river. Bharatkosh places this peeth at Kovvur (Kubbur), a place also known as Goshpada Kshetra.