Gangaya Sahini

Gangaya Sahini was a Kayastha chief who commanded the cavalry of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva.¹² He ruled a great fief (land held from the king) from Valluru-pattana in the Kadapa (then Cuddapah) district.¹²³ His three nephews ruled after him.¹⁴

The Kayasthas

Gangaya Sahini was the first prominent member of the Kayastha family.² P. V. Parabrahma Sastry calls this family the most powerful of all the Kakatiya subordinates.² The family’s origin is uncertain. In one passage Parabrahma Sastry writes that they are believed to have been warriors from western India, first stationed by Ganapatideva at Panugallu near Nalgonda as governors.²⁵ In another he cites an unpublished inscription near Nalgonda.²⁵ It says that Ganapatideva brought Gangaya Sahini from north India to train his cavalry.²⁵

The title sahini belonged to the officers who trained horses and elephants for war, and the Kayasthas long commanded the Kakatiya cavalry.⁶⁵

How he entered Kakatiya service

The two main histories tell different stories. Parabrahma Sastry dates his earliest inscription, at Gundluru in the Palnadu, to 1239, and it already gives him his title Gandapendara.² A record of 1242 shows him ruling the Eruva country from Kroccherla as Ganapatideva’s subordinate.²

N. Venkataramanayya and M. Somasekhara Sarma followed a village record of Oguru. They wrote that he was first in the service of the Telugu Choda king Tikka of Nellore, as governor of his lands above the Eastern Ghats. In their account, when Tikka died in 1248, the Vaidumba chief Rakkasa Ganga drove him out.³ He entered Ganapatideva’s service about 1250, probably with the help of his brother-in-law Ambadeva, and he won back his territory before 1253.³

Parabrahma Sastry’s account of Ganapatideva’s southern campaign also makes him the defeated commander of the Nellore king’s forces.⁷ In that account Ganapatideva recognised and promoted him after the Kakatiya army defeated Rakkasa Ganga.⁷ In his chapter on the Kayasthas, Parabrahma Sastry dates the encounter with Rakkasa Ganga to 1254, and he makes the Nellore king Manumasiddhi II Gangaya’s ally in it.⁸

Head of the seventy-two branches

An inscription of 1250 at Tripurantakam calls him bahattara-niyogadhipati, head of the seventy-two branches (niyogas) of the administration.¹² Another there calls him turaga-sadhanika, commander of the cavalry.¹²

Both histories doubt whether the title brought real control over the ministers and generals.⁹³ Parabrahma Sastry thought that at least the mahapradhanas (chief ministers) held such power.⁹ Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma found the evidence too thin to decide.³

Ganapatideva made him a mahamandaleshvara (great lord) and gave him a great fief.¹²³ Parabrahma Sastry describes it as reaching from Panugallu in the Nalgonda district to Marjavadi in the Kadapa district. Venkataramanayya and Somasekhara Sarma took it as far as the fort of Kaivaram in the Kolar district. He ruled it from Valluru-pattana in the Kadapa district, the later capital of the Kayastha state.¹²³

He bore the title Pashchimaraya-damodara-disapatta.¹⁰ Parabrahma Sastry read it as recording that he put to flight a western king named Damodara, perhaps the Yadava king Kannara, though the identification is a guess.¹⁰ An inscription of 1251 at Durgi gives him Ganapatideva’s own title Chalamartiganda.⁸

Death and successors

Gangaya Sahini had no sons. He was succeeded by Jannigadeva (Janardana), son of his younger sister Chandaladevi.¹⁴ Then came Jannigadeva’s brothers Tripurari and Ambadeva.¹⁴

The date of his death is given in two ways:¹¹¹¹²⁴

• as 1257, in one passage of Parabrahma Sastry and in The Early History of the Deccan¹¹¹¹²⁴
• as 1258, in two other passages of Parabrahma Sastry’s book¹¹¹¹²⁴

After him the office of bahattara-niyogadhipati passed to the Induluri minister Gannaya and then to Pomkala Mallaya-preggada.⁹¹²

Footnotes

1. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 117. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

2. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 157. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

3. N. Venkataramanayya and M. Somasekhara Sarma, “The Kakatiyas of Warangal”, in G. Yazdani (ed.), The Early History of the Deccan, Parts VII–XI (1960), p. 619. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

4. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 159. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

5. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 196. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

6. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 141. ↩

7. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), pp. 113–114. ↩ ↩²

8. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 158. ↩ ↩²

9. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 192. ↩ ↩² ↩³

10. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), pp. 157–158. ↩ ↩²

11. N. Venkataramanayya and M. Somasekhara Sarma, “The Kakatiyas of Warangal”, in G. Yazdani (ed.), The Early History of the Deccan, Parts VII–XI (1960), p. 620. ↩ ↩² ↩³

12. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 128. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴