Telugu Cholas of Renadu

The dynasty in brief

The Telugu Cholas were a family of kings in the Rayalaseema country who claimed descent from Karikala, the famous early Chola king of the Kaveri delta.¹ Their kingdom was Renandu, the “Renandu seven thousand” of the inscriptions.² It lay roughly between the Chitravati and the Cheyyeru, two tributaries of the Penner.² It covered most of the old Kadapa (Cuddapah) district and parts of Kolar and Chittoor.²

Their capitals were Chippili (Chirpali) in the Madanapalle country and Biriparu.³⁴ The 1956 editors thought Biriparu was perhaps Malepadu itself, on the south bank of the Penner.³⁴

Their history rests almost wholly on inscriptions.⁵⁶ These are two copper-plate grants of Punyakumara, a third set of plates of the related chief Srikantha, and a group of short stone records in early Telugu.⁵⁶

Twelve of the stone records were edited together in Epigraphia Indica XXVII.⁷⁸ Seven had first been noticed early in the 19th century by Colin Mackenzie’s assistants.⁷⁸ Their eye-copies (copies made by hand) helped the editors restore lost words.⁷⁸ None of the records gives a date in any era, so every date on this page is an estimate.⁹

Who they were: Karikala and the Telugu Chola claim

The Malepadu plates of Punyakumara were published by H. Krishna Sastri in 1912.¹ They open the family tree with “a king Nandivarman of the Kasyapa-gotra”, born in the family of Karikala.¹ This Karikala stopped the overflow of the Kaveri and “made his own the dignity of the three kings”.¹

Later Telugu Choda inscriptions repeat that an ancestor, Karikala, had the banks of the Kaveri built “by Trilochana and other kings”.¹⁰ Krishna Sastri took Trilochana to be the legendary Pallava ruler of the Telugu country of later tradition.¹⁰ On that basis he dated Karikala to about the end of the 5th century.¹⁰

How a Chola family came to rule in the Telugu country is disputed.

• The Cuddapah gazetteer of 1915 held that Karikala took Kanchi from Trilochana-Pallava.¹¹ It held that a branch of the Cholas then “penetrated inland and established themselves for a century or two” on the Penner.¹¹
• K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya (1956) noted a newer view that credits the move to the Pallava conquest of the Kaveri country under Simhavishnu (about 575–600).¹² Against it they argued that the family was already settled in the Telugu country before that conquest.¹² Their reason was that its first known member, Nandivarman, bears the name of an earlier Pallava king.¹² They suggested a general northward movement after the Gupta raid into the eastern Deccan in the 4th century.¹² But they held that Karikala’s own part could not be settled without more direct evidence.¹²
• The same editors identified Erigal, a name several princes put before their titles, with Nidugal in the Pavugada taluk of Tumkur district.¹³ They thought the country round Nidugal one of the family’s earliest seats in the Telugu country.¹³ From there, they thought, the family spread east into Renandu, Siddhi and Hiranyarashtra.¹³

Xuanzang’s Chu-li-ye

The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsiang), travelling about 640, went “south-west 1000 li or so” from Dhanakataka on the Krishna to “the kingdom of Chu-li-ye (Chulya)”. (A li is a Chinese measure of distance.) In Samuel Beal’s translation (1884) the country was “about 2400 or 2500 li in circuit”.¹⁴ It was “deserted and wild, a succession of marshes and jungle”, with a very small population and “troops of brigands” on the roads.¹⁴

He saw ruined Buddhist monasteries, “some tens of Dêva temples, and many Nirgrantha heretics” (Jain monks).¹⁴ He also saw a stupa (relic mound) ascribed to Asoka south-east of the capital.¹⁴ From there he went south, through a wild forest, to Dravida and its capital Kanchipura.¹⁵

Where Chu-li-ye lay has been argued for more than a century.

• Thomas Watters (1905) noted that Alexander Cunningham had suggested the Kurnool district.¹⁶ James Fergusson thought that “the direction and distance would take us to Nellore”.¹⁶ Watters himself took the name to mean the Chola country in general.¹⁶
• V. Venkayya connected Chu-li-ye with the Telugu Cholas of Kadapa.¹⁷¹⁸ Krishna Sastri cited the kingdom as proof that their state existed in the 7th century.¹⁸
• The Cuddapah gazetteer of 1915 declared that “the doubt has now been cleared up”.¹¹ It said Chu-li-ye was “the Telugu Chola kingdom occupying most of the black cotton country of this district and perhaps parts of Kurnool and Anantapur”.¹¹

Three lines descended from Nandivarman

From the Malepadu plates, the Malepadu stone of Satyaditya, the Madras Museum plates of Srikantha and their own twelve records, Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya drew a family tree.¹²¹⁹ It shows three lines descended from Nandivarman’s three sons.¹²¹⁹ They warned that it is not strictly a genealogy, because several links rest on sequence or probability rather than stated descent.¹²¹⁹

• Simhavishnu, the eldest son: no descendants are known.³
• Sundarananda: his line, ending with Srikantha, carved out the country round Budili (Pudali), a hamlet of Budidigaddapalle in the Hindupur country. A hero-stone there names Kapi-Bola Mutturaju, son of a Mahendra who bore the titles Manaravi and Marurapidugu.²⁰³
• Dhananjaya, the youngest: his line, which came from Erigal, held Renandu, Hiranyarashtra and “Siddhi thousand”, with capitals at Chippili and at Biriparu or Malepadu.³

The kings of Dhananjaya’s line who left records are, in the editors’ order:¹⁹³

• Dhananjaya
• his son Mahendravikrama, who first took the title Chola-Maharaja
• Mahendravikrama’s sons Gunamudita and Punyakumara
• then, joined to this line by probability only, Vikramaditya I, Saktikumara, Vikramaditya II and his sons Uttamaditya and Satyaditya
• last, Prithvivallabha Vijayaditya Chola¹⁹³

Titles and the division of the kingdom

Several princes are called Muturaju or Mutturaju (“senior prince”), and Dugaraju, Dukaraju or Tugaraju.¹³²¹ The editors showed that the last is a Telugu form of yuvaraja, “heir-apparent”.¹³²¹

From these titles and the supreme title Maharajadhiraja (king of great kings) they inferred that the kingdom was divided into three charges.²² Each was held by a member of the royal family, with the king ruling one directly.²² They asked whether succession went by seniority rather than to the eldest son.²²

The records also name local officers called rattagudi, rattakudi or rattagullu. Krishna Sastri argued that the word was the source of the Sanskrit rashtrakuta and the later Telugu reddi, a headman of cultivators.²³²⁴ The 1956 editors rendered it tentatively as a settler or cultivator holding an office or dignity whose exact nature was still unclear.²⁵

The language of the inscriptions

All twelve records edited in 1956 are in early Telugu, in the early Telugu-Kannada script used by the Chalukyas of Badami.⁷ Its editors described the Kalamalla pillar of Dhananjaya as one of the earliest records then known to be written wholly in Telugu.²⁶ They noted that Telugu was already growing apart from Kannada as a language, although the two still shared a script.²⁶ They also noted that earlier Pallava records contain Telugu words but no complete Telugu text.²⁶

The Erragudipadu stone of an Erikal-Mutturaju is written in almost the same letters.² It was placed in the last quarter of the 6th century or a little later.²

Krishna Sastri, publishing the Malepadu stone of Satyaditya in 1912, had already called the family’s stone records “the earliest Telugu records from the Cuddapah district”.²⁷ The copper plates are in Sanskrit, while the stone records are in Telugu.¹²³ One memorial stone at Chippili naming a Punyakumara is in Kannada.¹²³

The Tippaluru stone of Punyakumara is unusual for its date.²⁸ It names the weekday and the hora (planetary hour).²⁸ The editors thought this the earliest mention of the hora then known in south Indian inscriptions.²⁸

Overlords: Pallavas, Chalukyas and Banas

The family’s names show its changing loyalties. Nandivarman, Simhavishnu, Mahendravikrama and Gunamudita bear names or titles of Pallava kings of Kanchi. Punyakumara’s titles echo those of Mahendravarman I. The later kings Vikramaditya, Vijayaditya, Uttamaditya and Satyaditya bear names of the Chalukyas of Badami.⁹²⁹

Krishna Sastri saw two possibilities in the Pallava names.¹⁸ The family were either subordinates of the Pallavas, or they “succeeded them politically in, at least, a portion of their extensive territory”.¹⁸ The 1956 editors treated borrowed names as a mark of feudatory status, in keeping with a common practice of the time.⁹

In the time of the Badami Chalukya Vijayaditya (696–733), inscriptions show Bana chiefs subordinate to the Chalukyas. These Bana chiefs ruled north of the Penner and in Renandu itself, and held Chilamakuru. The editors concluded that the Banas occupied the Telugu Chola country during or after Satyaditya’s rule.⁸³⁰

They also concluded that Vijayaditya Chola, styling himself Prithvivallabha (lord of the earth), threw off Chalukya overlordship and brought the Banas under his own rule.⁸³⁰ A record of his 22nd year at Chamaluru names a Bana king ruling at Pambuliggi under him.⁸³⁰ This differs from the 1915 Cuddapah gazetteer, which held that the district “never came under the sway of the Chalukyans”.¹¹

How the chronology was built: three datings

The same king has been given three different dates, from about 625 to the end of the 8th century.¹⁸⁹³¹

• H. Krishna Sastri (1912) compared the writing of the Malepadu plates with the Ederu plates of the Eastern Chalukya Vijayaditya II (799–843).³²¹⁸ He allowed “a little more than a century” for the five rulers from Nandivarman to Punyakumara.³²¹⁸ He referred the plates “to about the end of the 8th century A.D.”.³²¹⁸
• K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya (1956) fixed Nandivarman about 550, because he and his son Simhavishnu bear the names of 6th-century Pallava kings.⁹²⁹ They counted 25 years a generation, and placed Dhananjaya about 575 and Punyakumara about 625.⁹²⁹ They found support in the close likeness of Punyakumara’s Tippaluru stone to the Vallam rock inscription of Mahendravarman I.⁹²⁹ They expressly rejected Krishna Sastri’s dating.⁹²⁹
• H. K. Narasimhaswami (1956) edited the Dommara-Nandyala plates of Punyakumara’s tenth year in the same volume.³¹ He compared their letters with the Kendur and Vakkaleri plates of the Chalukya Kirtivarman II.³¹ He placed both sets of plates about the middle of the 8th century, with Punyakumara’s accession about 740.³¹

The 1956 editors noted the consequence of the disagreement.²⁹ If Krishna Sastri were right, the Punyakumara of the 7th-century stone records would have to be a different and earlier member of the family.²⁹

Lion or tiger: the seal

The seals of the Telugu Chola copper plates show a maned beast with a raised paw. Robert Sewell’s chronicle (1932) says that the family used the tiger seal of the Chola house.¹⁷ J. Ramayya Pantulu brought the Malepadu plates to notice.²⁷ He described their seal as bearing “a tiger which stands to the proper left, raises the left fore-paw, opens the mouth and has a twisted tail”.²⁷

V. Venkayya had supposed it to be the tiger crest of the Cholas of Thanjavur (then Tanjore).²⁷ Krishna Sastri argued that the posture, the twisted tail and “the profuse mane round its neck” make it “look more like a lion than a tiger”.²⁷ He compared lions carved on stones at Peddamudiyam and Muddanur and on the Pallava cave at Siyamangalam.³² Narasimhaswami described the seal of the Dommara-Nandyala plates as a rampant lion with a prominent mane and raised left paw.⁶

Later Cholas of Renandu

The 1956 editors traced a longer survival of the Budili line. Srikantha outlived the other branches and took the title Chola Adhiraja (supreme king).⁹²⁹ Kielhorn had compared the writing of his Madras Museum plates with the Masulipatam plates of the Eastern Chalukya Vijayaditya III (854–897).⁹²⁹

After him a king the editors call Chola-Maharaja II styled himself ruler of “Renandu seven thousand” in many records.⁹ Later chiefs of the Budili country fought the Banas, Vaidumbas and Nolamba-Pallavas.⁹

The Cuddapah gazetteer of 1915 thought Telugu Chola rule ended in the later 8th century, when the family “were probably dispersed by the Rashtrakutas”.¹¹ Both it and Krishna Sastri noted an 11th-century chief in Bastar, Chandraditya, who claimed descent from Karikala with almost the same family titles.³²³³

Krishna Sastri also noted a Kannada record of 1124–25 at Peddamudiyam, of the time of the Western Chalukya Vikramaditya VI.¹⁸ It names a Mahamandalesvara Atyana-Chola-Maharaja, whose praise opens with the same passage as the early Chola records of Kadapa.¹⁸ Sewell lists the same chief as governing Renadu under Vikramaditya VI.³⁴ See also the Western Chalukyas of Kalyani.

From the 11th century the name Choda passed to new families in the Telugu country: the Telugu Chodas of Pottapi and Nellore, the Velanati Chodas and the Kandur Chodas. Krishna Sastri saw them as later branches of the same family, now called Telugu-Choda.¹⁸

Inscriptions

The main records of the Telugu Cholas of Renandu, with their editors’ approximate dates:⁷²⁷⁶

• Kalamalla, pillar of Erikal-Muturaju Dhananjaya, about 575
• Erragudipadu, stone of Erikal-Mutturaju, about 575–600
• Uruturu and Indukuru, stones of Chola-Maharaja (Mahendravikrama), early 7th century
• Veludurti, Tippaluru and Ramesvaram (Proddatur), stones of Punyakumara
• Malepadu plates of Punyakumara, fifth year, and Dommara-Nandyala plates, tenth year
• Chilamakuru and Nallacheruvupalle, stones of Vikramaditya II; Veludurti, stone of Uttamaditya; Malepadu stone of Satyaditya
• Chamaluru, stone of Vijayaditya Chola, 22nd year
• Budidigaddapalle, hero-stone of Kapi-Bola Mutturaju of the Budili line⁷²⁷⁶

Footnotes

1. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 339 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

2. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 225 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 249 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

4. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 235 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

5. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 246 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

6. H. K. Narasimhaswami, “Dommara-Nandyala Plates of Punyakumara; 10th Year”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 268 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

7. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records from Anantapur and Cuddapah”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 220 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

8. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 242 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

9. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 250 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

10. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 340 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

11. C. F. Brackenbury, Madras District Gazetteers: Cuddapah (1915), pp. 26–27 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

12. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 247 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

13. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), pp. 221–222 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

14. Samuel Beal (tr.), Si-yu-ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World II (1884), p. 227 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

15. Beal, Si-yu-ki II (1884), p. 228 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

16. Thomas Watters, On Yuan Chwang’s Travels in India II (1905), pp. 224–225 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

17. Robert Sewell, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 21 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

18. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 344 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

19. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 248, genealogical table (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

20. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 245 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

21. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 226 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

22. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 224 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

23. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 342 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

24. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 343 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

25. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 231 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

26. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 221 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

27. H. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates of Punyakumara; the Fifth Year”, Epigraphia Indica XI (1912), p. 337 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

28. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 233 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

29. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 251 and note 4 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

30. Nilakanta Sastri and Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records” (1956), p. 243 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

31. Narasimhaswami, “Dommara-Nandyala Plates” (1956), p. 270 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

32. Krishna Sastri, “Malepadu Plates” (1912), p. 338 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

33. Brackenbury, Cuddapah (1915), p. 28 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

34. Sewell, Historical Inscriptions (1932), p. 98 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩