School of History, Culture & Archaeology

Profile

The School of History Culture & Archaeology, one of the eight Schools established by the Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University, is situated in Srisailam, which is 225 km away from Hyderabad.

Srisailam is one of the most ancient  and most Sacred Saivite centres of India. Through various stages of History it  had expanded as a great and Sacred Complex  encompassing four main and  four sub – centres in 8 cardinal directions  as a Eight – Petalled Lotus (Asta  Dala Padma) with Srisailam at its centre. Each of these eight centres (Tripurantakam, Siddhavatam, Alampuram, Umamaheswaram, Somasila, Pushpagiri, Sangameswaram, Eleswaram) along with Srisailam. These were not comprehensively studied from the view point of Art,   Architecture,  Iconography and History from a holistic perspective.  The Nallamalais are the  original homeland for the aboriginal tribe – The Chenchus –  who are intimately associated with the History and Cult of the sacred complex of Srisailam.  The Ethno Archaeology of the tribe, their belief systems ,ritual practices etc. are yet to be comprehensively studied. The Prehistory of the Nallamalais also needs to be studied. With all these prospective areas of study Srisailam offers a fertile ground for research. The research programmes  (M.Phil & Ph.D) and Projects  of the Department are designed in such a way  so as to cover these areas of  Research.