Kusumayudha IV (Chalukya of Mudigonda)

Kusumayudha IV is the donor of the earliest known record of the Chalukyas of Mudigonda.¹² This copper-plate grant gave historians the outline of the family through its pedigree (family list).¹²

The grant

Cecil Bendall, Professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge, found the plates during a stay at Hyderabad in March 1899.¹ They belonged to the treasury of the Nizam, which lent them to him.¹ He published them in the Indian Antiquary in 1903.¹ There are five plates, with slightly raised rims, on a ring whose seal was worn away.¹ The language is Sanskrit, but a few lines of Telugu were added later in another hand.¹ Bendall judged the letters to be those of Chalukya inscriptions “of about the eleventh century or later”.¹

In the grant, Kusumayudha IV calls together the householders of the district (vishaya) of Mamchikonda, headed by the Rashtrakutas.³⁴ He tells them that he has given the village of Mogaluchuruvulu, free of all taxes, to the Brahmana Doneya of the Kutsita gotra (family line).³⁴ He made the gift at the winter solstice.³⁴ One of its boundaries, to the south, is Koravi.³⁴ The year is not given.³⁴

Bendall could not identify the places, apart from Kondapalli, which he took to be the town near Vijayawada (then Bezwada).¹ See the Mogalcheruvula grant.

Family

The grant calls the family the Madugonda-Chalukyas of Mudugondu.¹⁴ In Bendall’s summary its founder was Kokiraja.¹⁴ Kokiraja’s younger brother, “living at Mudugonduru”, won back from a king named Chiyyaraja his captured Garuda and Vetala banners.¹⁴

Bendall’s pedigree runs from Kokiraja through five more generations.¹ Kokiraja’s son was Kusumayudha I, whose son was Bijayita.¹⁴ Bijayita’s son was Kusumayudha II, whose son was Vijayaditya, whose son was Kusumayudha III.¹⁴ Kusumayudha III had three sons, Nijjiyaraja, Malbaduraja and Lobhachalaka, in Bendall’s pedigree.¹

Bendall noted that the Sanskrit at this point calls Malbaduraja the “father”, but that “son” must apparently be meant, unless Malbaduraja was a title of Vijayaditya.⁴ Kusumayudha IV was the son of Nijjiyaraja and his queen Achidevi.¹⁴

The grant also names a Polakesi and a Ranamarda.¹⁴ It says that from their line came a daughter cherished by the Chalukyas, and that Ranamarda came to the region of Mamchikonda and to Kondapalli.¹⁴ Bendall thought these two were possibly ancestors of the queen-mother Achidevi.¹⁴ P. V. Parabrahma Sastry read the family list as starting from Ranamarda, who gained the Manchikonda district and Kondapalli.⁵

Dates

N. Venkataramanayya assumed that Kusumayudha IV lived about 1050 and allowed twenty-five years to a generation.⁶ On that basis he placed Kusumayudha IV about 1040–1065 and the founder Kokiraja about 865–890.⁶ Parabrahma Sastry doubted Bendall’s eleventh-century date for the plates.⁵

Parabrahma Sastry also noted that the Mogalcheruvula grant and the later Kukkunur plates give two different family lists.⁵⁷ Historians join them only because both have a Nijjayaraja followed by a Kusumayudha.⁵⁷

Footnotes

1. C. Bendall, “Grant of Kusumayudha IV”, Indian Antiquary XXXII (1903), p. 281 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰

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

3. Bendall, “Grant of Kusumayudha IV” (1903), p. 282 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Bendall, “Grant of Kusumayudha IV” (1903), p. 284, translation and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

5. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 52. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

6. N. Venkataramanayya, The Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (1953), p. 36, note 55 continued (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

7. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 53. ↩ ↩²