Bottu-Beta (Chalukya of Mudigonda)

Bottu-Beta was a chief of the Chalukyas of Mudigonda, whose family ruled the Koravi (Kuravi) country.¹ He is named in the Kukkunur plates of his son Kusumaditya.¹ A Telugu inscription at Gudur tells how a neighbouring chief put him on his throne, but scholars disagree about whether the two records mean the same man.²³

Family

According to the Kukkunur plates, Bottu-Beta was the son of a Kusumayudha who had the title Mutt-anegalla.¹ By his queen Mahadevi he had two sons, Kusumaditya and Nagati.¹ P. V. Parabrahma Sastry gave the queen’s name as Abhinava-gauri in his table of the family.⁴

Bottu was the family’s name, not part of his own name, in Parabrahma Sastry’s view.⁵³ He thought the family moved its capital from Koravi to a place called Bottu, which has not been identified, and then took that name.⁵

The Gudur inscription

P. Sreenivasachar published the Gudur inscription of Kamasani in 1942.⁶ Its Telugu verses praise Erra of the Viriyala family, born in the Durjaya line.⁶⁷ In Sreenivasachar’s translation, Erra “took up the cause of Bottu-Beta, killed his enemy violently”, and established him in the Koravi country.⁷ The verse adds that Erra was then ruling some villages “in the name of that boy”, so Bottu-Beta was still young.⁷

The next verse turns to the Kakatiyas. Erra and his wife Kamasani helped the young Kakatiya chief Beta and won him the emperor’s favour.⁷ The record does not name Bottu-Beta’s enemy.⁷ See the Gudur inscriptions and Gudur.

One Bottu-Beta or two?

Bh. Lakshminarayana, who edited the Kukkunur plates in 1974, held that the Bottu-Beta of Gudur was Kusumaditya’s father.² Some earlier writers, among them Vedam Venkataraya Sastri, had taken Bottu-Beta to be the Kakatiya Beta II himself. Lakshminarayana rejected this, because the Kukkunur plates show the Mudigonda line going on after Kusumayudha IV.² In his view Bottu-Beta and the Kakatiya Beta were two men who lived at the same time, under the Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI.² Counting twenty-five years a reign, he placed Bottu-Beta about 1110–1140.⁸

Parabrahma Sastry disagreed.⁹³ The Gudur record is dated 1124, but its donor Malla was the great-grandson of Erra.⁹ So the verse tells of events about four generations earlier.⁹ Parabrahma Sastry made its Kakatiya Beta the chief Beta I, who lived until about 1052.³ He concluded that the Bottu-Beta of Gudur was an earlier chief of the same name, left out of the Kukkunur list, and dated his restoration to about 1000 or a little before.³¹⁰ He suggested that this chief’s father may have been driven out of Koravi by the Kakatiya Gunda IV.⁵¹¹

Where the sources disagree

• Which Bottu-Beta Erra helped. Lakshminarayana said the father of Kusumaditya.² Parabrahma Sastry said an earlier chief of the same name.³
• Which Kakatiya Beta lived at the same time. Lakshminarayana said Beta II, under Vikramaditya VI.² Parabrahma Sastry said Beta I.³
• His dates. Lakshminarayana placed Kusumaditya’s father about 1110–1140.⁸ Parabrahma Sastry placed the Gudur events about 1000.¹⁰

Footnotes

1. Gajjala Vasanta Lakshmi (ed.), Epigraphia Telanganica I: Pre-Kakatiya Telangana (2023), p. 353, reprinting Bh. Lakshminarayana, “Kukkunuru Plates of Kusumadya”, Epigraphia Andhrica II (1974), pp. 39–49. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. Epigraphia Telanganica I (2023), p. 354, reprinting Lakshminarayana (1974). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

3. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 55. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

4. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 53, genealogical table. ↩

5. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 41. ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. P. Sreenivasachar (ed.), A Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts of H.E.H. the Nizam’s Dominions, Part II (1942), p. 78, No. 23, “Gudur Inscription of Kamasani” (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

7. Sreenivasachar, Corpus, Part II (1942), p. 79, translation, verses 3–4 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

8. Epigraphia Telanganica I (2023), p. 355, reprinting Lakshminarayana (1974). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

9. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 54. ↩ ↩² ↩³

10. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 56. ↩ ↩²

11. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 42. ↩