throughout the plain taluks of the district when houses are built.
Gókavaram: Nineteen miles north-north-east of Rajahmundry. Population 2,425. Contains a local fund rest-house and a large weekly market to which the hill people bring the produce of the Rampa country for sale.
Kórukonda: Eleven miles north-north-east of Rajahmundry. Population 3,952. Contains a police-station. A travellers' bungalow is kept up in the neighbouring village of Gónagúdem. A pilgrimage to the temple of Narasimhasvámi at Kórukonda is supposed to be of unrivalled efficacy in granting offspring to childless women, and the place is often thronged with suppliants of this class. Rumour avers that the Bráhmans of the place take a personal and direct share in ensuring that their prayers shall not be fruitless, and the belief has passed into a proverb. A festival which lasts for fifteen days takes place at the temple in the months of January and February.
Kórukonda and its neighbour Kóti 1[1] appear once to have been of some political importance. One of the Mackenzie MSS. which deals with the ancient history of the district 2[2] gives some account of their early fortunes. It says that Kóti and 101 Siva temples were founded by king Rájarája of the Eastern Chálukya line, who reigned from 1022 to 1063 and is prominent in the traditional history of Rajahmundry, and that about two hundred years later a fort was built in Kóti by an early Reddi chief named Annala Déva. The MS. goes on to quote a local inscription of 1322-23, apparently still in existence at the end of the eighteenth century, which recorded the revenue arrangements made in the village by the Kákatiya king, Pratápa Rudra, who reigned till 1324. The Kórukonda fort was built some time afterwards by Kúna Reddi, 'a good Súdra who became ruler of the adjoining country,' and who governed wisely and well. He was succeeded by his son Mummidi Reddi, one of whose servants erected the Lakshminarasimha temple. The date of this event is given both in the MS. and in an inscription quoted by Mr. Sewell as 1353.3[3] Mummidi Reddi's three immediate successors ruled for the next 40 years. One of them rebuilt the Ranganáthasvámi temple in 1394-95 A.D.
