Jogulamba (Alampur)

Jogulamba Shakti Peetha is located at Alampur (Alampuram) in Jogulamba Gadwal district of Telangana, on the northern bank of the Tungabhadra river. The site marks where Sati's upper teeth (or, in some traditions, the tongue) fell. The original Jogulamba Devi temple was submerged by the backwaters of the Srisailam reservoir when the dam was built; the idol was rescued and installed in a new temple at Alampur.

Alampur is famous for its Navabrahma (nine Brahma) temples — a magnificent set of early Chalukya temples (7th–8th century CE) built in the Badami Chalukya style with superb stone sculpture, designated a protected monument. The Jogulamba temple complex is adjacent to these Navabrahma temples. The goddess Jogulamba (the mother who is a yogi, the ascetic mother) is an unusual and fascinating Shakti form — depicted in a skull-sitting posture with terrifying iconography, associated with the Kapalika Tantric tradition.

Sati's upper teeth fell at Alampur. The teeth — instruments of speech, of discrimination, of the breaking down of matter — fell here at the confluence of the Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers. Jogulamba, the yogini mother, represents the fierce, ascetic side of the goddess — she who has gone beyond social forms and physical beauty into pure shakti. The Kapalika tradition — the skull-bearer — meets the Shakti Peetha tradition here, giving Jogulamba an especially intense Tantric quality.