Sunday Story 15: A Lesser Temple

MANDIRAMMA BANDA IS EITHER the first or the last thing you will see in Palem, depending on which way you approach the village. It is a rather grotesque, odd-shaped rock about five feet high that leans back against the main trunk of a banyan tree, pushed off to one corner of the old shivalayam compound. If you stand next to Mandiramma Banda, with a palm placed on her rough granite surface, and look to your left, you will see the seated Nandi, in profile, in front of the temple, and to your right ...