Five temples of Shiva in the Andhra country enshrine the pieces of a single lingam, and their story is told in the Skanda Purana. The demon Tarakasura had won from Shiva a lingam that made him invincible, worn upon his body, so that no blow could end him. When Kumara Swamy — Shiva's son, the young commander of the gods — met him in battle, he found the demon rose whole again each time he was struck, until Vishnu revealed that the lingam itself must first be broken. With his weapon of fire, Kumara Swamy shattered it into five pieces; but the fragments, sounding the syllable Om, began to draw together to make themselves whole once more.
So Surya, at Vishnu's word, fixed each piece where it had fallen and raised a temple over it, and thus stilled, the five became the Pancharama Kshetras — Amararama at Amaravati, Draksharama, Somarama at Bhimavaram, Ksheerarama at Palakollu, and Kumararama at Samalkota. The lingams are said to bear to this day the scale-like marks of that fire. To visit all five is a cherished devotion of the Shaivas of the region, gathering into one journey the scattered fragments of a single presence of Shiva.
