The Thousand Pillar Temple is one of the very old temples of South India that was built by the kakatiyas. It stands out to

be a masterpiece and achieved major heights in terms of architectural skills by the ancient kakathiya vishwakarma

sthapathis. It is believed that the Thousand Pillar Temple was built by King Rudra Deva in 1163 AD. The Thousand Pillar

Temple is a specimen of the Kakatiyan style of architecture of the 12th century.

It was destroyed by the Tughlaq dynasty during their invasion of South India. It comprises one temple and other building.

There are one thousand pillars in the building and the temple, but no pillar obstructs a person in any point of the temple

to see the god in the other temple.

The present day engineers have taken out all the pillars from the building. After they lifted all the pillars they encountered

a huge mass of sand. It took nearly two weeks for them to take away all the sand. It was wet sand, because of a pipe

connection from the nearby water body named Bhadrakali Cheruvu.

The Thousand Pillar Temple with its ruins lies in the near the Hanamkonda-Warangal highway, about 150 kilometers

from Hyderabad city. This temple is star-shaped with several shrines and lingams. There are three shrines inside the

temple called the Trikutalayam. The three shrines of the Thousand Pillar Temple are dedicated to Lord Shiva, Lord

Vishnu and Lord Surya. The Thousand Pillar Temple is surrounded by a big garden in which many small lingam shrines

can be seen. There are 1,000 richly carved pillars and a Nandi bull in the temple. The Nandi bull was carved out of a

black basalt monolith that has been highly polished.

The Thousand Pillar Temple is constructed on a platform that is raised to one metre height from the ground level. The

temple is provided with a number of pillars which are intricately carved and adorned. Rock cut elephants and perforated

screens in the temple are characteristic of the then prevailing dynasty.