Peda Vedagiri (Recherla)

Peda (Pedda, “elder”) Vedagiri was a son of Mada Nayaka and succeeded him at Devarakonda. He is known from one inscription of his own reign, from the genealogies of his descendants and from the family chronicles.¹²³ See the Recherla Velamas.

Family

The Rasarnavasudhakara says that Madhava-nayaka’s many sons, headed by Vedagiri, continued the family (our paraphrase of verse 16).⁴ According to Epigraphia Telanganica, the Velugotivari Vamsavali names Peda Vedagiri as the son of Mada who succeeded him at Devarakonda.⁵ In the same way, Singa II succeeded Anapota at Rachakonda.⁵

A tank inscription of 1427 at Sarikonda, as summarised there, traces the Devarakonda line:²⁶

• Dacha and Singa²⁶
• Madhava²⁶
• Vedagiri I, who married Mallamba of the Kotalagonga family²⁶
• their son Madhava II²⁶
• Vedagiri II, whose children it names as Lingama Nayaka and Ammalamba²⁶

Another inscription of the same year, at Charikonda, makes Lingama the brother of Vedagiri II.²⁶ The same work lists him as Vedagiri I, ruling from 1384 to 1410.⁷ See Lingama Nayaka.

The name causes some confusion. The same poem calls the elder son of Anapota “Devagirisvara”.⁸ M. Seshagiri Sastri’s manuscript read the name as Vedagirisvara.⁹ The family history of 1922 lists a Pedda Vedagiri Naidu among the sons of Mada.¹⁰ Whether Anapota also had a son named Vedagiri is not clear from these sources.

The record of 1399

The only inscription of his reign summarised in Epigraphia Telanganica is a damaged Telugu record of 8 March 1399. It is on a pillar near the Muthyalamma temple at Murupunuthula in the Nalgonda district. After invoking the boar incarnation of Vishnu, it names Era Dacha, Singa, his son Madhava and Madhava’s son Vedagiri. It says that Vedagiri ruled the country between Srisailam and the Vindhya mountains. It records his grant of the agrahara (Brahmin village) of Morupunutula to the god Mallari. The record was written by Manchena-bhattu, called Nissankula Bharati, son of Narayana Somayajulu of Brahmanapalli.¹

Chronicle

The family chronicle printed in 1910 says that Peda Vedagiri made Devarakonda his main capital.³ It says he ruled Warangal and the neighbouring country together with his cousins.³ It adds that older genealogies gave him a title meaning “the forest fire that burnt the forest of hostile kings near Ekasilanagara”, that is, Warangal.³

Yashoda Devi, citing the Velugotivari Vamsavali, took this title as a record of his part in the battle of Bhimavaram.¹¹ In that battle his uncle Anapota overthrew Kapaya Nayaka.¹¹

Footnotes

1. Epigraphia Telanganica, vol. 4 (2023), p. 33, No. 16. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

2. Epigraphia Telanganica, vol. 4 (2023), pp. 33–34, No. 17. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

3. Vellala Sadasiva Sastri, Velugotivari Vamsacaritramu (1910), introduction, pp. 62–63 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Telugu; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. Singabhupala, The Rasarnavasudhakara, ed. T. Ganapati Sastri (Trivandrum Sanskrit Series No. L, 1916), p. 3, verse 16 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrase ours. ↩

5. Epigraphia Telanganica, vol. 4 (2023), p. 31, No. 12. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

6. Epigraphia Telanganica, vol. 4 (2023), p. 35, No. 19. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

7. Gajjala Vasanta Lakshmi (ed.), Epigraphia Telanganica, vol. 4 (2023), p. 11, list of rulers. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

8. Singabhupala, Rasarnavasudhakara, ed. Ganapati Sastri (1916), p. 4, verse 26 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

9. M. Seshagiri Sastri, Report on a Search for Sanskrit and Tamil Manuscripts for the Year 1896-97, No. 1 (1898), p. 8 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

10. Alladi Jagannatha Sastri, A Family History of Venkatagiri Rajas (1922), p. 27 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

11. V. Yashoda Devi, After the Kakatiyas (1975), p. 65 and note 128. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²