Kakatiya dynasty


The Kakatiya dynasty was a South Indian dynasty whose capital was Orugallu, now known as Warangal. It was eventually conquered by the Delhi Sultanate.
The demise of Kakatiya dynasty resulted in confusion and anarchy under alien rulers for sometime, before the Musunuri Nayaks brought stability to the region.

Etymology and names

Studies of the inscriptions and coinage by the historian Dineshchandra Sircar reveal that there was no contemporary standard spelling of the family name. Variants include Kakatiya, Kakatiyya, Kakita, Kakati and Kakatya. The family name was often prefixed to the name of the monarch, giving constructs such as Kakatiya-Prataparudra. Some of the monarchs also had alternate names; for example, Venkata and Venkataraya may have been alternate names of Prataparuda I, with the former appearing on a coin in the form Venkata-Kakatiya.
The dynasty's name derives from the word "Kakati", which is variously thought to be the name of a goddess or a place. It is possible that Kakati was the name of a deity worshipped by the early Kakatiya chiefs, and also the name of the place where they resided.
Kumarasvami Somapithin, a 15th-century writer who wrote a commentary on Vidyanatha's Prataparudriya, states that the dynasty was named after Kakati, a form of goddess Durga. Although the Hindu mythological texts do not mention any such form of Durga, the worship of a goddess named Kakati is attested by several other sources. For example, Vallabharaya's Krida-bhiramamu mentions an image of Kakatamma in the Kakatiya capital Orugallu. the 16th century Shitap Khan inscription mentions the reinstallation of the image of goddess Jaganmatrika and the lotus seat of the Kakatirajya, which had been destroyed by the Turushkas. According to one theory, Kakati was originally a Jain goddess, and later came to be regarded as a form of Durga.
The Bayyaram tank inscription from the reign of Ganapati-deva names the family's founder as Venna, and states that he resided at Kakati, because of which his descendants came to be known as Kakatishas. Ganapati-deva's Garavapadu charter names the family's founder as Durjaya, and states that his descendant Karikala Chola arrived at a town called Kakati during a hunting expedition, and set up his camp there. The modern identity of Kakati is uncertain: different historians have variously attempted to identify it with modern Kakati village in Karnataka and Kanker in Chhattisgarh. Siddeshvara Charitra, a later literary work, states that the ancestors of the Kakatiya family lived at Kandarapura. However, no other evidence supports this tradition.

Origin

The Kakatiya rulers traced their ancestry to a legendary chief or ruler named Durjaya. Many other ruling dynasties of Andhra also claimed descent from Durjaya. Nothing further is known about this chief.
Most of the Kakatiya records do not mention the varna of the family, but the majority of the ones that do, proudly describe them as Shudra. Examples include the Bothpur and Vaddamanu inscriptions of Ganapati's general Malyala Gunda senani. The Kakatiyas also maintained marital relations with other Shudra families, such as the Kotas and the Natavadi chiefs. All these evidences indicate that the Kakatiyas were of Shudra origin.
A few copper-plate inscriptions of the Kakatiya family describe them as belonging to the Kshatriya varna. These inscriptions primarily document grants to brahmans, and appear to be inspired by the genealogies of the imperial Cholas. For example, the Motupalli inscription of Ganapati counts legendary solar dynasty kings such as Rama among the ancestors of Durjaya, the progenitor of the Kakatiya family. The Malkapuram inscription of Vishveshvara Shivacharya, the preceptor of Kakatiya rulers Ganapati-deva and Rudrama-devi, also connects the Kakatiyas to the solar dynasty. The term "Kshatriya" in these panegyric records appears to signify the family's warrior-like qualities rather than their actual varna.

Early feudatory chiefs

The regnal years of the early members of the Kakatiya family are not certain. Venna, said to have been born in the family of Durjaya, is the earliest known Kakatiya chief. The Bayyaram tank inscription names his successors as Gunda I, Gunda II, and Gunda III, comparing them to the three Ramas. Gunda III was succeeded by Erra, who ruled Kurravadi and other regions. The inscription states that Erra's successor Gunda IV alias Pindi-Gunda beheaded all his enemies. Gunda IV is also mentioned in the Mangallu grant of the Eastern Chalukya ruler Dānārnava in 956 CE.
Gunda IV was succeeded by Beta I, who was succeeded by Prola I, called ari-gaja-kesari in the Bayyaram inscription. The succeeding chiefs included Beta II, Tribhuvanamalla Durgaraja and then Prola II.
The early Kakatiya rulers used the title "Reddi". However, after they became sovereigns they were addressed as "deva" and "devi". There appears to be a significant element of "sanskritisation" in this transition.

Relationship to the Rashtrakutas

Early members of Kakatiya family appear to have served as military generals of the Rashtrakutas, as indicated by a 956 inscription of the Vengi Chalukya prince Dānārnava. The inscription suggests that an attack by the Rashtrakuta king Krishna III forced the Vengi Chalukya king Amma II to flee his kingdom, after which Dānārnava ruled the kingdom as a Rashtrakuta vassal. It records Dānārnava's grant of Mangallu village to a brahmana named Dommana, at the request of Kakatiya Gundyana. Dommana had performed a religious ceremony called Karpati-vrata for Gundyana, for which he received the village as an agrahara. The inscription names Gundyana's ancestors as Gundiya-Rashtrakuta and Eriya-Rashtrakuta. This suggests that Gundyana was a Rashtrakuta general, and not a Vengi Chalukya subordinate, as assumed by some earlier historians.
The Bayyaram tank inscription, which records the construction of Dharma-kirti-samudra tank by Ganapati's sister Mailama, provides another genealogical list. The similarities of names mentioned in the Mangallu and Bayyaram inscriptions lists suggest that both of these refer to the same family:
Mangallu grant inscriptionBayyaram tank inscription
Kakatiya familyDurjaya family
Venna-nripa
Gundiya RashtrakutaGunda I
Gunda II
Gunda III
Eriya RashtrakutaErra
Betiya
Kakartya GundyanaPindi-Gunda

Historian P.V.P. Sastry theorizes that Betiya was the son of Eriya and father of Gundyana, but may have become too insignificant to be mentioned by his descendants, because of a premature death or another reason.
The significance of the suffix "Rashtrakuta" in the names of the early Kakatiya chiefs is debated. According to one theory, the suffix implies that these chiefs were Rashtrakuta subordinates. This theory is based on the fact that the phrase Rashtrakuta-kutumbinah appears in several Rashtrakuta-era copper-plate inscriptions, and refers to the officers and subjects of the Rashtrakuta kingdom.
According to another theory, the suffix implies that the Kakatiyas were a branch of the Rashtrakuta family, because the term Rashtrakuta-kutumbinah was used for officers employed by the Rashtrakuta administration, not feudatory chiefs: the early records of the Kakatiya chiefs describe them as samantas. The Kazipet Darga inscription of Tribhuvanamalla Durgaraja states that the Kakatiya chief Beta was born in the family of Samanta Viṣṭi. Historian P.V.P. Sastry theorises that "Viṣṭi" is a corruption of Vrishni, the name of a clan from which some Rashtrakutas claimed descent. He notes that some chiefs of Rashtrakuta origin adopted the title "Viṭṭi-narayana", which means "as great as Narayana of the Vitti family. Sastry further proposes that the term "Voddi", which appears in the phrase Voddi-kula in the Mangallu inscription may be same as "Viṣṭi". Sastry also believes that the early Kakatiya chiefs followed Jainism, which was also patronized by the Rashtrakutas, thus strengthening the view that the two dynasties were connected.
The Kakatiyas seemed to have adopted the mythical bird Garuda as their royal insignia, as attested by the Ekamranatha temple inscription of Ganapati-deva, the Palampet inscription of the Kakatiya general Recharla Rudra, and Vidyanatha's Prataparudriya. The Bayyaram tank inscription calls the Kakatiya chief Beta I Garudamka-Beta, and "Garuda" here appears to refer to the family's emblem. In Hindu mythology, Garuda is the vahana of god Vishnu. The Rashtrakutas and some other dynsaties of Deccan claimed descent from the Vrishni clan, and had adopted Garuda as their royal insignia. According to Sastry, this corroborates the theory that the Kakatiyas were associated with the Rashtrakuta family. Sastry further speculates that the Kakatiyas may have adopted the Garuda symbol because of Jain influence: the yaksha of the Jain tirthankara Shantinatha is represented by the Garuda symbol.
Based on Ganapati-deva's Garavapadu inscription, which names Karikala Chola among the family's ancestors, epigraphist C.R.K. Charlu theorised that the Kakatiyas were a branch of the Telugu Cholas. However, no other Kakatiya record mentions Karikala, and unlike the Telugu Cholas, the Kakatiyas did not claim to belong to the Kashyapa-gotra. Therefore, Sastry dismisses Charlu's theory as untenable.
After the decline of the Rashtrakuta power, the Kakatiyas served as vassals of the Kalyani Chalukyas. After the decline of the Chalukya power in the 12th century, they assumed sovereignty by suppressing other Chalukya subordinates in the Telangana region.

As sovereigns

Prataparudra I

The 1149 Sanigaram inscription of Prola II is the last known record of the Kakatiyas as vassals. The 1163 Anumakonda inscription of Prataparudra I is the earliest known record that describes the Kakatiyas as a sovereign power.
According to Sastry, Prataparudra I reigned between around 1158 – 1195, while Sircar gives the dates 1163–1195. He was also known as Rudra Deva, Kakatiya Rudradeva, Venkata, and Venkataraya He was the son of Prola II, who had made efforts to assert greater Kakatiya influence on territories in the western parts of the declining Western Chalukyan empire and who died in a battle fought against the Velanati Choda ruler Gonka II around 1157/1158 while doing so. It was during Prataparudra's reign, in 1163, that the Kakatiyas declared an end to their status as feudatory chiefs of the Chalukyas. It is notable that inscriptions were henceforth written using the Kakatiya chiefs' vernacular Telugu rather than the Kannada language that had prevailed until that point.
Mahadeva succeeded Prataparudra I as king, reigning probably from 1195 to 1199.

Ganapati

Just as the Seuna and Hoysala dynasties took control of linguistically related areas during the 13th century, so too did the Kakatiyas under the rule of Ganapati. He is also known as Ganapathi Deva and, according to Sastry, reigned between 1199–1262; Sircar gives regnal dates of 1199–1260. He significantly expanded Kakatiya lands during the 1230s when he launched a series of attacks outside the dynasty's traditional Telangana region and thus brought under Kakatiya control the Telugu-speaking lowland delta areas around the Godavari and Krishna rivers. The outcome in the case of all three dynasties, says historian Richard Eaton, was that they "catalysed processes of supralocal identity formation and community building".
The Kakatiya capital at Orugallu, established in 1195, was not forgotten while Ganapati expanded his territory. He organised the building of a massive granite wall around the city, complete with ramps designed for ease of access to its ramparts from within. A moat and numerous bastions were also constructed.
Ganapati was keen to bolster the dynasty's economy. He encouraged merchants to trade abroad, abolishing all taxes except for a fixed duty and supporting those who risked their lives to travel afar. He created the man-made Pakhal Lake.

Rudrama Devi

, also known as Rudramadevi, reigned around 1262–1289 CE and is one of the few queens in Indian history. Sources disagree regarding whether she was the widow of Ganapati or his daughter.
Marco Polo, who visited India probably some time around 1289–1293, made note of Rudrama Devi's rule and nature in flattering terms. She continued the planned fortification of the capital, raising the height of Ganapati's wall as well as adding a second earthen curtain wall in diameter and with an additional -wide moat.
A fragmentary Kannada language inscription also states that the Kakatiya general Bhairava defeated the Yadava army probably in or after 1263 CE, which may be a reference to his repulsion of Mahadeva's invasion. A coin of Mahadeva bears the Kakatiya emblem varaha with the Yadava symbols; this varaha may have been stuck on Mahadeva's coins to mark the Kakatiya victory.
Rudrama was married to Virabhadra, an Eastern Chalukyan prince of Nidadavolu who had been selected for that purpose by her father. Having no son as an heir, Rudrama abdicated in favour of her grandson when it became apparent that the expansionist sultan Alauddin Khalji was encroaching on the Deccan and might in due course attack the Kakatiyas.

Prataparudra II

The earliest biography of Rudrama Devi's successor, Prataparudra II, is the Prataparudra Caritramu, dating from the 16th century. His reign began in 1289 and ended with the demise of the dynasty in 1323. It is described by Eaton as the "first chapter in a larger story" that saw the style of polity in the Deccan change from being regional kingdoms to transregional sultanates that survived until the arrival of the British East India Company in the 18th century.

Decline

The Kakatiya kingdom attracted the attention of the Delhi Sultanate ruler Alauddin Khalji because of the possibility for plunder. The first foray into the Kakatiya kingdom was made in 1303 and was a disaster due to the resistance of the Kakatiya army in the battle at Upparapalli. In 1309 Alauddin sent his general, Malik Kafur, in an attempt to force Prataparudra into acceptance of a position subordinate to the sultanate at Delhi. Kafur organised a month-long siege of Orugallu that ended with success in February 1310. Prataparudra was forced to make various symbolic acts of obeisance designed to demonstrate his new position as a subordinate but, as was Alauddin's plan, he was not removed as ruler of the area but rather forced thereafter to pay annual tribute to Delhi. It was probably at this time that the Koh-i-Noor diamond passed from Kakatiya ownership to that of Alauddin, along with 20,000 horses and 100 elephants.
In 1311, Prataparudra formed a part of the sultanate forces that attacked the Pandyan empire in the south, and he took advantage of that situation to quell some of his vassals in Nellore who had seen his reduced status as an opportunity for independence. Later, though, in 1318, he failed to provide the annual tribute to Delhi, claiming that the potential for being attacked on the journey made it impossible. Alauddin's son Mubarak Shah responded by sending another of his generals, Khusrau Khan, to Orugallu with a force that bristled with technology previously unknown in the area, including trebuchet-like machines. Prataparudra had to submit once more, with his obeisance on this occasion being arranged by the sultanate to include a very public display whereby he bowed towards Delhi from the ramparts of Orugallu. The amount of his annual tribute was changed, becoming 100 elephants and 12,000 horses.
The new arrangements did not last long. Taking advantage of a revolution in Delhi that saw the Khalji dynasty removed and Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq installed as sultan, Prataparudra again asserted his independence in 1320. Tughlaq sent his son, Ulugh Khan, to defeat the defiant Kakatiya king in 1321. Khan's army was riven with internal dissension due to its containing factions from the Khalji and Tughluq camps. This caused the siege on this occasion to last much longer — six months, rather than the few weeks that had previously been the case. The attackers were initially repulsed and Khan's forces retreated to regroup in Devagiri. Prataparudra celebrated the apparent victory by opening up his grain stores for public feasting. Khan returned in 1323 with his revitalised and reinforced army and, with few supplies left, Prataparudra was forced into submission after a five-month siege. The unprepared and battle-weary army of Orugallu was finally defeated, and Orugallu was renamed as Sultanpur. It seems probable, from combining various contemporary and near-contemporary accounts, that Prataparudra committed suicide near to the Narmada River while being taken as a prisoner to Delhi.

Characterization

Geography

The Kakatiya base was the city of Orugallu in the dry uplands of northern Telangana on the Deccan Plateau. From there they expanded their influence into Coastal Andhra, the delta between the Godavari and Krishna rivers that feed into the Bay of Bengal. According to Rao and Shulman, the latter contained a high proportion of Brahmins while the former was the haunt of "peasants, artisans and warriors". Under the Kakatiyas, cultural innovation often began in the uplands, was refined in the lowlands and then recycled back into the Deccan. This bi-directional flow of cultural influences brought into being a feeling of cultural affinity between those who spoke the Telugu language where nothing of that nature had previously existed. The unification of the distinct upland and lowland cultures was their most significant political achievement, achieved through a process of binding many locally powerful figures in allegiance to the empire.
The area of land under Kakatiya control reached its zenith around the 13th century CE during the rule of Ganapati Deva. By this time, South India and the Deccan was essentially under the aegis of four Hindu monarchies, of which the Kakatiyas were one. The four dynasties were in a constant state of warfare with each other, with the Kakatiyas eventually exercising control from close to Anagondi in the west to Kalyani in the north-east, and down to Kanei and Ganjam district in southern Orissa.

Architecture

A notable trend during the dynastic period was the construction of reservoirs for irrigation in the uplands, around 5000 of which were built by warrior families subordinate to the Kakatiyas. The dramatically altered the possibilities for development in the sparsely populated dry areas. Many of these edifices, often called "tanks", including the large examples at Pakala and Ramappa, are still used today.
Another notable architectural feature of the dynasty relates to temples. Even before the arrival of the dynasty, there were large, well-established and well-endowed Hindu places of worship in the relatively populous delta areas; however, the temples of the uplands, which were smaller and less cosmopolitan in origin and funding, did not exist until the Kakatiya period. In the lowlands, where Brahmins were numerous, the temples had long benefited from a desire to build social networks for the purposes of domestic and foreign trade, as well as for obtaining grazing rights in the face of competition; in the uplands, the endowment of the buildings was often associated with the construction and continued maintenance of reservoirs and enabled a different type of networking based on political hierarchies. The strengthening of those hierarchies, which was achieved in part by donating land for the temples and then attending worship, was necessary as the inland agrarian society grew rapidly in number and location.

Society

There is a disparity between analysis of inscriptions, of which the work of Cynthia Talbot has been in the vanguard, and the traditional works of Vedic Hinduism that described pre-colonial India in terms of a reverent and static society that was subject to the strictures of the caste system. Colonial British administrators found much that appealed to them in the latter works but the Kakatiya inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh, which depict a far wider range of society and events, suggest that the reality was far more fluid and very different from the idealised image.
Caste itself seems to have been of low importance as a social identifier. Even the Kakatiya kings, with one exception, considered themselves to be Shudras. They were egalitarian in nature and promoted their subordinate warrior-chiefs who were similarly egalitarian and spurned the Kshatriya rank. Anyone, regardless of birth, could acquire the nayaka title to denote warrior status, and this they did. There is also little evidence that Kakatiya society paid much regard to caste identities, in the sense of jāti. Although occupation does appear to have been an important designator of social position, the inscriptions suggest that people were not bound to an occupation by birth.
The population became more settled in geographic terms. The growth of an agricultural peasant class subsumed many tribal people who previously had been nomadic. The nexus of politics and military was a significant feature of the era, and the Kakatiya recruitment of peasants into the military did much to create a new warrior class, to develop social mobility and to extend the influence of the dynasty into areas of its kingdom that previously would have been untouched. The Kakatiya kings, and in particular the last two, encouraged an egalitarian ethos. The entrenched landed nobility that had existed prior to the dynasty found its power to be on the wane; the royal gifting of lands formerly in the possession of nobles to people of lesser status did much to effect this dilution.

Religion

Historian P.V.P. Sastry theorises that the early Kakatiya chiefs were followers of Jainism. A story in the Siddheshvara-charita states that Madhavavarman, an ancestor of the Kakatiyas, obtained military strength by the grace of goddess Padmakshi. The 1123 Govindapuram Jain inscription of Polavasa, another family of feudatory chiefs, contains a similar account of how their ancestor Madhavavarman obtained military strength by the grace of the Jain goddess Yaksheshvari.
According to tradition, Prola II was initiated into Shaivism by the Kalamukha preceptor Rameshvara Pandita, and established Shaivism as his family's religion. The Shaivism-affiliated personal names of the later Kakatiya kings also indicate a shift towards Shaivism. This, according to Sastry, strengthens the theory that the early Kakatiya chiefs were Jains.

Genealogy

The following members of the Kakatiya family are known from epigraphic evidence. The rulers are children of their predecessors, unless otherwise specified.

Feudatory chiefs

Tughlaq control of the area lasted only for around a decade. The fall of the Kakatiya dynasty resulted in both political and cultural disarray because of both disparate resistance to the sultanate and dissension within it. The structure of the Kakatiya polity disintegrated and their lands soon fell under the control of numerous families from communities such as the Reddies and Velamas. As early as 1330, Musunuri Nayaks who served as army chiefs for Kakatiya kingdom united the various Telugu clans and recovered Warangal from the Delhi Sultanate and ruled for half a century. Surrounded by more significant states, by the 15th century these new entities had ceded to the Bahamani Sultanate and the Sangama dynasty, the latter of which evolved to become the Vijayanagara empire.
A brother of Prataparudra II, Annamaraja, has been associated with ruling what eventually became the princely state of Bastar during the British Raj period. This appears likely to be historical revisionism, dating from a genealogy published by the ruling family in 1703, because it records only eight generations spanning almost four centuries of rule. Such revisionism and tenuous claims of connection to the Kakatiyas was not uncommon because it was perceived as legitimising the right to rule and a warrior status. Talbot notes that there is a record of a brother called Annamadeva and that:
According to Talbot and Eaton, a revisionist interpretation of Prataparudra II himself appeared much sooner, within a few years of his death, and for broadly similar reasons. A stone inscription dated 1330 mentions a Prolaya Nayaka, who was said to have restored order, as in Prataparudra days. He presented himself as a legitimate successor to Prataparudra, by portraying both of them as righteous monarchs, meanwhile reconstructing Prataparudra's life and career in a favorable way. By 1420, Muslim rulers had become accommodated to the Deccan society, and strong dichotomies between Hindus and Muslims were no longer useful. Muslim rulers were no longer conceived as diametrically opposed to the figure of Prataparudra, but rather as rulers of equal status.
This type of revisionism, which Talbot describes as "social memories" and which persist to the present day, reappeared in the 16th century with the Prataparudra Caritramu hagiography, which claimed him to be the founder of the padmanayaka class of Telugu warrior and provided the elite of the Vijayanagara empire with what Talbot has described as a "charter of legitimacy". This work claimed, contrary to all reasonable evidence, that he did not die after being taken prisoner but instead met with the sultan, was recognised as being an avatar of Shiva, and allowed to return to Orugallu. Once back home, the Prataparudra Caritamu says, he released the padmanayakas from their allegiance to him and told them to become independent kings. The work also claims Vijayanagara to be an ally of Prataparudra, which is clearly anachronistic but served the purpose of elevating the role of the padmanayakas, whom it claimed to be ultimately subordinate to Vijayanagara during his time.