Manma-Keta (Keta III)

Manma-Keta, also called Keta III, was a chief of the Kotas of Amaravati–Dharanikota on the south bank of the Krishna.¹ He ruled in the 1230s, when the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva was gaining power on the coast.¹² He matters because his copper plates give the fullest family tree of the Kotas, and because his queen still honoured the Buddha at Amaravati.¹

Family

The Edavalli plates name six generations of the family. They run from Bhima I through Keta I, Bhima II, Keta II and Bhima III to Manma-Keta, “son of Sabbambika”.¹ So Manma-Keta was a grandson of Keta II.¹

His queen was Bayyalamahadevi.¹ The Government Epigraphist noted in 1916 that she was a daughter of the Natavadi chief Rudra and of Mailamamba, a sister of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva.¹ This tied the Kotas to the Kakatiya royal house by marriage.¹

A record of 1258 calls the mahamandalesvara (great provincial lord) Jagamechchuganda Ganapatidevaraja the son of Bayyaladevi.¹ The report took him to be “an undoubted son” of Manma-Keta.¹ V. Yashoda Devi thought that this son already shared in the government during his father’s reign.²

The Edavalli plates

The Edavalli plates were found in the Narasaraopet taluk.¹ They record the gift of the village of Edavalli to 404 Brahmans.¹ Some of them came from the “Six-thousand” country that the Kotas ruled, and some from the Vengi country next to it.¹ The date is given in number words that make Saka 1162, about 1240 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years).¹

The seal of the plates shows a gandabherunda, “the fabulous bird of two heads”.³ The report noted that the Kotas took this bird as their royal crest.³ Yashoda Devi read the plates as calling Manma-Keta lord of the city of Dhanyakataka, the old name of Amaravati.²

Gifts to the Buddha

A pillar in the Amaresvara temple at Amaravati carries the great inscription of Keta II. Below it is a second grant to the Buddha, made by Bayyamamba in Saka 1156, about 1234.⁴ It has twelve Sanskrit verses and a passage in Telugu prose.⁴ The report of 1916 noted that Bayyama, “very like the queens of Keta II”, was a devotee of the Buddha at Amaravati.¹

A record of Manma-Ketaraja himself was copied in the Madras Museum.⁵ The epigraphist reported in 1914 that it too records the gift of a lamp to the temple of the Buddha.⁵ See the Amaravati pillar inscription of Keta II.

His reign

Yashoda Devi listed the records of his time.² An inscription at Amaravati of 1235 calls him mahamandalesvara Manmaketaraja.² His son Ganapati left records at Prattipadu in 1234 and at Begatapuram in 1238.² She noted that neither father nor son names the Kakatiyas as overlords in these records, and thought they were allies rather than subjects.² Manma-Keta is not heard of after 1240.⁶

Where the sources disagree

• Whose queen was Bayyamamba? E. Hultzsch, editing the Amaravati pillar in 1901, took Bayyamamba to be a wife of Keta II.⁴ In 1914 the epigraphist called her “perhaps” the wife of Manma-Keta.⁵ In 1916, using the Edavalli plates, the report made her the queen of Manma-Keta, a grandson of Keta II.¹
• His place in the family. The report of 1916 and P. V. Parabrahma Sastry’s table make Manma-Keta the son of Bhima III.³⁷ Yashoda Devi agreed, and called him Bhima’s eldest son.²

Footnotes

1. 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 ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶

2. V. Yashoda Devi, The History of Andhra Country, 1000 A.D.–1500 A.D. (1993), p. 165 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

3. 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. E. Hultzsch, “Two Pillar Inscriptions at Amaravati”, Epigraphia Indica VI (1901), p. 157, inscription B (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Annual Report on Epigraphy, Madras, for 1913–14 (G.O. No. 920, Public, 4 August 1914), Part II, para. 41, p. 105 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. Yashoda Devi, History of Andhra Country (1993), p. 166 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

7. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 156, table of the Kota chiefs. ↩