Kotas of Dharanikota

The Kotas were a family of chiefs whose seat was Dhanyakataka, the old Amaravati–Dharanikota, on the south bank of the Krishna. They ruled the surrounding “Six-thousand” country in the late 12th and 13th centuries. E. Hultzsch suggested that the word Kota, “the fort”, put before their names, “perhaps refers to the fort of Dharanikota near Amaravati”.¹

P. V. Parabrahma Sastry counted them among the relatives of the Kakatiyas.² In his account, Dharanikota was the capital from which they took their name.²

The six-thousand country

The Kota chiefs called themselves “the lord of the district of six-thousand (villages) on the southern (bank) of the Krishnavenna river”.¹ They said the district was “obtained through the favour of the glorious Trinayana-Pallava”.¹ They also called themselves “the lord of Sri-Dhanyakataka, the best of cities”.¹

Hultzsch noted that the Velanati Chodas told the same legend of a gift from Trinetra Pallava.³ He also noted that the Yenamadala inscription calls the district Konnatavadi.⁴ He placed Gondanatavadi, one of the districts named in Keta II’s grants, in the western part of the Sattenapalle taluk.⁵

The Annual Report on Epigraphy for 1916 called the Kotas the next rulers of the six-thousand country after the Kondapadumati chiefs.⁶ Robert Sewell’s table (1932) dates the first two chiefs of the line, Bhima I and Keta I, to about 1100 and 1130.⁷

Keta II

The family’s longest records are on a pillar at the southern entrance to the central shrine of the Amaresvara temple at Amaravati. The first, edited by Hultzsch, is an inscription of Keta II dated in Saka 1104 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years).⁸¹⁵ F. Kielhorn found the date irregular and thought it most likely 5 January 1183.⁸¹⁵ Hultzsch took it to be “probably the very day of the accession of Keta II to the throne”.⁸¹⁵ See the Amaravati pillar inscription of Keta II.

The inscription opens with the city of Dhanyakataka, its temple of Amaresvara and, close by, “a very lofty Chaitya” (shrine) of the Buddha.⁸¹ Hultzsch identified this Chaitya with the great stupa (relic mound).⁸¹ Keta II gave the Buddha three villages and sheep for two perpetual lamps, and two women of his household gave lamps.¹

He gave many villages to Brahmans for the merit of his mother Sabbamadevi, his father Bhima and his elder brother Choda.¹ He renamed the villages after each of them and after his own title, Jagamechchuganda.¹ Hultzsch concluded that “the Buddhist religion continued to have votaries in the Telugu country” (still had followers).⁵ He added that it “was tolerated and supported by the Hindu rulers of Amaravati”.⁵

Marriage alliances

The Kotas were bound by marriage to both the great houses of their time. Another inscription in the Amaresvara temple, of the same day, says that Keta II’s mother was a sister of a Gonka.⁵ Hultzsch took this Gonka to be probably Gonka III of Velanandu.⁵

The Annual Report for 1916 noted that Keta II’s grandson Manma-Keta married Bayyalamahadevi.⁶⁹ She was the daughter of the Natavadi chief Rudra and of Mailamamba, a sister of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva.⁶⁹ The report also noted that Ganapamba, the daughter of Ganapatideva, was given in marriage to Beta, a grandson of Keta II.⁶⁹ It concluded that “the Kota chiefs were related by intermarriage to the Kakatiyas and the Velanandu chiefs”.⁶

Chilukuri Veerabhadra Rao, writing in Telugu in 1912, took Keta II’s maternal uncle to be Gonka II.¹⁰ He wrote that Gonka II gave his sister Sabbamadevi in marriage to Keta’s father Bhima.¹⁰

Under the Kakatiyas

Parabrahma Sastry gave the Kotas a part in the death of the Kakatiya Prola II. He cited a Draksharama inscription in which Chodayaraja of the Kota family, together with the Haihaya chiefs of the Kona country, killed Prola.¹¹¹² He cited another, of 1169, that gives a Kota Chodayaraja the title “burner of Kakati Prola”.¹¹¹²

In his account, the Kakatiya Rudradeva marched on the Palnadu about 1185 and defeated the Kota chief Dodda Bhima.¹³¹⁴¹⁵ Rudradeva took Dharanikota and restored Bhima’s son to the throne as a subordinate.¹³¹⁴¹⁵ The Malyala general Kata took the title “conqueror of Kota” for his part.¹³¹⁴¹⁵ Parabrahma Sastry wrote that under Ganapatideva the Kotas declared their loyalty again.¹⁶

Kota Beta and Ganapamba

The Yenamadala pillar, in the Guntur taluk, records the pious works of Ganapamba, daughter of Ganapatideva and widow of Kota Beta. It gives Beta’s descent from Keta through Rudra, and says that Ganapa gave his daughter to Beta.⁴¹⁷

After Beta’s death, the pillar says, she placed golden pinnacles on the shrine of Amaresvara.⁴¹⁷ She built a temple of Siva called Betesvara after her husband.⁴¹⁷ At Dhanyakataka she built another, called Ganapesvara after her father.⁴¹⁷ See the Yenamadala inscription of Ganapamba.

Inscriptions at Ipuru in the Vinukonda taluk call her Mahamandalesvara (great provincial lord) Kota Ganapamadevi.¹⁸ In 1914 the Government Epigraphist concluded that “Ganapama after the death of her husband did actually rule and assume the male titles of her family”.¹⁸

Titles and the end of the family

The Kota chiefs bore the titles Jagamechchuganda and Gandabherunda. The Annual Report for 1916 thought that Keta II, “evidently the most powerful prince of the family”, acquired the first.⁹ It noted that the gandabherunda, “the fabulous bird of two heads”, was the royal crest on the seal of the Edavalli plates.⁹

Robert Sewell’s table (1932) carries the family down to Keta III’s sons Ganapati, with records of 1258–1263, and Bhima IV, with one of 1265.⁷ It also notes a record of a Kota Rudra in 1275–76.⁷ Parabrahma Sastry found that the family’s stone inscriptions at Amaravati and Velpuru are of more literary than historical value.²

Legend: the “Jain kings” of Dharanikota

Gordon Mackenzie’s Kistna District Manual (1883) printed a list of “Jain Kings of Dharanikota”, taken largely from the Yenamadala stone.¹⁹²⁰ He also recorded legends of a contest at Dharanikota in which the Jains were defeated by magic and “crushed in oil mills”.¹⁹²⁰

He hesitated even to put the list forward.¹⁹²¹ He dismissed as “legendary” a story from the Mackenzie manuscripts that Ganapatideva’s grandson Prataparudra drove the Jains out of Dharanikota.¹⁹²¹

None of the Kota inscriptions cited here calls the family Jain.⁵ Hultzsch noted that Keta II and his predecessors were worshippers of Siva Amaresvara.⁵

Evidence and disagreements

• The date of Keta II’s pillar. Hultzsch and Kielhorn read Saka 1104 (about 1182–83).¹ Mackenzie gave the Amaresvara pillar inscription of Kota Keta as A.D. 1192.²⁰
• Bayyamamba’s husband. Hultzsch thought Bayyamamba, who gave a lamp to the Buddha in 1234, was a wife of Keta II.²² The Annual Report for 1916, using the Edavalli plates, made her the queen of his grandson Manma-Keta (Keta III).⁶
• The date of the Yenamadala inscription and of Beta’s death. Hultzsch accepted Saka 1172 (1249–50) from Mackenzie’s copy.¹⁷ The Epigraphist in 1914 found Beta still alive in Saka 1173 and dead by 1179, so that the record could not be earlier than 1173.¹⁸ Sewell’s table has Beta alive in 1250 and dead before 1253.⁷ Parabrahma Sastry thought Beta had died before 1218, the date he gave to a copper-plate grant of Ganapamba from Mogalutla.²³¹⁵
• Prola II’s death. Parabrahma Sastry’s account rests on the Draksharama inscriptions and on a reading of the Pithapuram inscription of 1195.¹¹ See the Haihayas.

Footnotes

1. Hultzsch, “Two Pillar Inscriptions at Amaravati” (1901), p. 147 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

2. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), pp. 154–155. ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. E. Hultzsch, “Pithapuram Pillar Inscription of Prithvisvara”, Epigraphia Indica IV (1897), p. 34 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

4. E. Hultzsch, “Yenamadala Inscription of Ganapamba”, Epigraphia Indica III (1895), p. 94 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

5. Hultzsch, “Two Pillar Inscriptions at Amaravati” (1901), p. 148 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

6. Annual Report on Epigraphy, Madras, for 1915–16 (G.O. No. 99, Home (Miscellaneous), 29 August 1916), Part II, para. 55, p. 137 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

7. Robert Sewell, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 363, “Kota Chiefs of Amaravati” (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

8. E. Hultzsch, “Two Pillar Inscriptions at Amaravati”, Epigraphia Indica VI (1901), p. 146 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

9. Annual Report on Epigraphy, Madras, for 1915–16 (1916), Part II, para. 55, p. 138 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

10. Chilukuri Veerabhadra Rao, Andhrula Charitramu, Part II (1912), p. 237 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). In Telugu. ↩ ↩²

11. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 87. ↩ ↩² ↩³

12. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 95. ↩ ↩²

13. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 98. ↩ ↩² ↩³

14. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), pp. 149–150. ↩ ↩² ↩³

15. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 156. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

16. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 107. ↩

17. Hultzsch, “Yenamadala Inscription of Ganapamba” (1895), p. 95 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

18. Annual Report on Epigraphy, Madras, for 1913–14 (G.O. No. 920, Public, 4 August 1914), Part II, para. 40, p. 104 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

19. Gordon Mackenzie, A Manual of the Kistna District (1883), p. 7 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

20. Mackenzie, Kistna District Manual (1883), p. 163 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

21. Mackenzie, Kistna District Manual (1883), p. 8 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

22. Hultzsch, “Two Pillar Inscriptions at Amaravati” (1901), p. 157 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

23. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 155. ↩