Guraja grant of Kapaya Nayaka

The record

The Government Epigraphist for South India registered this set of copper plates as copper-plate No. 3 of 1934–35, and his report summarised it the same year. The plates came from Guraja, in the Gudivada taluk of the old Krishna (then Kistna) district.¹² Both the report and the editors of the Vilasa grant refer to a discussion of the grant in the Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol. XX, pp. 260 ff.²³ That discussion has not been consulted for this page.²³ See Guraja and Kapaya Nayaka.

Date

The grant is dated in Saka 1267 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years), given by the chronogram (date in words) giri-tarka-bhanu.¹ It falls in the cyclic year Parthiva, on the day of a solar eclipse in the month of Magha.¹ The report’s table of dates gives the equivalent as Wednesday, 22 February 1346, the day of a solar eclipse.⁴

The gift

On that day Kapaya-nayaka gave the village of Prolavaram, on the bank of the Malaghni, to Kandaya Peddi-Bhatta.¹ He gave it for the merit of his predecessor Prolaya-nayaka.¹

The donee was of the family line of the sage Saunaka.¹ Saunaka had lived in the Naimisha forest and performed a twelve-year sacrifice.¹ Peddi-Bhatta had himself performed a satra sacrifice at Srisailam.¹ He also wrote a commentary on the Girisa-sahasra.¹

The epigraphist identified the Malaghni with the stream called Malapaha in the Jujjavaram plates of the Reddi king Anna-Vema of 1371.² Those plates also come from the Gudivada taluk.² He read the naming of the village after Prola as a sign of Kapaya’s gratitude to his predecessor.²

The Musunuri family line

The grant gives the donor’s family for three generations.² Pota had four sons, Pocha, Deva, Kama and Raja.² Their sons were these:²

Pocha’s sons were Prola and Erapota.²
Deva’s were Kapa and Mummadisa.²
Kama’s were Immadisa and Deva.²
Raja’s son was Anavota, lord of Toyyeru.²

The family name is given as Musunuri.² After Prola’s rule, the grant says, Kapa succeeded him and ruled in great prosperity by the grace of the god Visvesvara of Kasi.²

The editors of the Vilasa grant later relied on this pedigree to show that Kapaya was Prolaya’s first cousin.³ The Vilasa grant, however, calls him a younger brother.³ See the Musunuri Nayakas.

Kapaya and Warangal

The grant describes Kapa as Prataparudra-pratima-prabhava, equal in power to Prataparudra, with his capital at Ekasilanagari.² From this the epigraphist concluded that Kapaya had succeeded to the Telugu country some time after the death of the last Kakatiya king.² He noted that Muslim troops held Warangal until about 1335, so Kapaya can have taken it only after that.²

The epigraphist mentioned the identification of Kapaya with the Kanya-Nayaka or Krishna-Nayak of the Muslim historians.² He also mentioned his identification with the uncle of the wife of Mummadi-Nayaka of Korukonda.² The editors of the Vilasa grant treated it as Kapaya’s earliest dated record.⁵ See Warangal.

Annual Report on South-Indian Epigraphy for 1934–35 (1938), p. 73, para. 52 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹
Annual Report on South-Indian Epigraphy for 1934–35 (1938), p. 74 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰
N. Venkataramanayya and M. Somasekhara Sarma, “Vilasa Grant of Prolaya-nayaka”, Epigraphia Indica XXXII (1957–58), pp. 249–250 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Annual Report on South-Indian Epigraphy for the Year ending 31st March 1935 (1938), p. 43, Appendix A, details of dates (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩
Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma, “Vilasa Grant” (1957–58), p. 256 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩