Vijayawada
— — a hill, a river, a temple older than the city.
Not only on a wall.
“A city built where the Krishna River bends past the Indrakeeladri hill. The Kanaka Durga temple on the hill is older than the streets below it; the Prakasam Barrage stretches more than a kilometre across the river and carries trains, lorries, and a slow stream of pilgrims. In October the river runs high and the goddess wears gold. The hills around the city hold caves cut in the fifth century. — from the studio
Vijayawada, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Vijayawada sits on the northern bank of the Krishna River in coastal Andhra Pradesh, in NTR District, with a population near 1.05 million in the city proper. It is the second-largest urban centre in the state and one of the busiest railway junctions in India, with most Howrah-Chennai and Delhi-Chennai trains stopping at Vijayawada Junction. The Indrakeeladri hill rises on the river's edge and is crowned by the Kanaka Durga temple, the religious heart of the city.
Kanaka Durga, the presiding deity of the city, is enshrined on Indrakeeladri hill in a temple Hindus have venerated since at least the seventh century, with mentions in Telugu literature placing it earlier. Across the river, the Undavalli Caves were cut into a sandstone hillside in the fifth century, with a four-storey monolithic facade and a reclining Vishnu in the upper sanctum. Mogalrajapuram, on the city's eastern hill, holds an earlier cluster of caves dated to the fifth and sixth centuries.
The Prakasam Barrage carries road and rail across the Krishna for 1,223 metres and forms the lake that defines the city's southern face. Bhavani Island, a 130-acre river island upstream of the barrage, is reached by ferry or by a short cable car. Dussehra at the Kanaka Durga temple draws the largest crowds of the year, with the ten-night festival ending on Vijaya Dasami in October. Vijayawada Airport is at Gannavaram, about twenty kilometres north-east.