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Singama Nayaka (Recherla)

Recherla chief of the mid-fourteenth century, son of Dacaya and father of Anapota and Mada, the founders of the Velama kingdoms of Rachakonda and Devarakonda. He fought the Musunuri chief Kapaya Nayaka and settled Brahmins on the Krishna. The family chronicle says he was stabbed to death while besieging the fort of Jallipalli, about 1361.

Singama-nayaka, also called Singa, was a chief of the Recherla family of Telugu warriors. The family rose to power in Telangana after the fall of the Kakatiyas in 1323. No inscription of his own is known.123 He appears in the records of his sons and grandsons.123

He also appears in the opening verses of the Rasarnavasudhakara, a Sanskrit treatise on drama by his grandson Singabhupala.123 The family chronicles of the later Velugoti family of Venkatagiri tell of him too, though they were written down centuries later.123 See the Recherla Velamas.

Family

According to the Inavolu inscription of 1369, Singama-nayaka was the son of Dacaya and the grandson of Vennaya.1 The Kandikonda inscription of 1375 names his wife as Singamamba and their two sons as Annavota and Madhava.4

His son Mada left an inscription at Jatararevu on the Krishna.5 As summarised in Epigraphia Telanganica, it names Mada’s parents as Singamanayaka and Singasanamma.5 A record of 1380 at Rayavaram in the Medak district, in the same summary, names a third son, Vennama, besides Anavota and Madhava.6 See Anapota Nayaka and Mada Nayaka.

The Rasarnavasudhakara gives the same line in verse. Its printed text calls Dacaya’s wife Vochamamba.7 It names three sons of Dacaya: Singa, a Veccama-nayaka and a Recama-mahipati.7 The manuscript read by M. Seshagiri Sastri in 1896–97 gave the brothers as Singama, Annama and Ecama.8

In the summaries of Epigraphia Telanganica, Dacaya’s wife is called Pochambika in the Kandikonda inscription.9 The Rayavaram record calls her Pochama, of the Gorukanti family.6

His youngest brother, called Recama in the printed text and Ecama in Seshagiri Sastri’s manuscript, had a son Nagaya-nayaka.210 Nagaya won the titles Kathari-raya and Rahutta-raya.210 The poem compares Singa to Vasudeva, the father of Krishna and Balarama, because his two sons were named Ananta and Madhava.2

Rise and the struggle with Kapaya Nayaka

V. Yashoda Devi describes the Recherla chiefs as feudatories (subordinate chiefs) of the Kakatiyas around Anumanagallu and Pillalamarri. In her account, Singama at first helped the Musunuri chief Kapaya Nayaka in the rising against Delhi in 1336–37.11 Then, she says, he refused to accept Kapaya’s overlordship.11 He moved his seat to Rajukonda (Rachakonda), built a fort there and defeated Kapaya, who had to flee.11

She reads Kapaya’s title “lord of the city of Anumanagallu” as a sign that Kapaya in turn defeated Singama about 1346.12 This title appears in Kapaya’s inscriptions of 1346 and 1357, and the Recherla chiefs had borne it before.12

The family chronicle also gives Singa a victory over Kapaya. Epigraphia Telanganica cites a verse of the Velugotivari Vamsavali for an encounter between the two.1314 It also summarises the chronicle’s further claims that Singa killed Komma and Rudra of a Matsa family in a battle at Magatala.1314

A verse in the prose chronicle of 1910, addressed to Singa’s descendant Lingama Nayaka, says that Singa “won over the Kapa king in battle”.15 Alladi Jagannatha Sastri’s family history of 1922 adds that he defeated and killed Macha Komma Naidu and Rudra Naidu near Gilugupalli.16 It says he was rewarded on eighty occasions, which earned him the name Asitivarala Singama Naidu.16 No inscription records these wars.

The Krishna frontier

The Rasarnavasudhakara says that Singa, near the river Krishna and the god Ailesvara, repeatedly settled Brahmins with great preparations (our paraphrase of verse 12).7 Yashoda Devi, drawing on the same work, says he extended his kingdom to the Krishna.17 She says he occupied Elesvaram on its northern bank, and some forts in the Doab between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra.17 There he fought princes of the Chalukya family.17

Jagannatha Sastri credits him with several agraharams (Brahmin villages) at Eleswaram, a place of pilgrimage on the Krishna.16

Death at Jallipalli

The chronicles tell how he died. The princes of the lunar race (Rachavaru, Kshatriyas) at Jallipalli had captured Singama’s brother-in-law, Chintalapalli Singama Nayaka, and Singama besieged their fort. Unable to defeat him in the field, they sent a sorcerer, Tammala Brahmajiyya, who came to his camp as a friend and stabbed him with a dagger. Dying, Singama told his sons Anapota and Mada to offer him the funeral offerings with the blood of his enemies.318 Yashoda Devi tells the same story from the chronicle, naming the assassin Tambala Bommajiyya.19

The chronicle’s date is followed by modern historians. N. Venkataramanayya, citing the Velugotivari Vamsavali, put the assassination in Saka 1283 (Saka is an Indian way of counting years), the year Sarvari (1361–62).20 A. S. Ramanatha Ayyar gave 1360.21 Yashoda Devi dates to 1361 the sons’ revenge, when they stormed Jallipalli and killed the princes of the lunar race.19

Where Jallipalli was is not settled: Yashoda Devi placed it in the Chintakunta taluk of the Mahbubnagar district.17 The book Epigraphia Telanganica lists a rock inscription by a tank at Jallipalli (Jallepalle) in the Khammam district, in characters of the fifteenth or sixteenth century.22 It speaks of a Pratigandabhairava Dachanayaka ruling the Andhra country from Jallipalli.22

Footnotes

  1. P. Sreenivasachar (ed.), A Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts of Andhra Pradesh, Part III (1956), p. 119, No. Wg. 1 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  2. Singabhupala, Rasarnavasudhakara, ed. Ganapati Sastri (1916), p. 3, verses 14–15 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Translation and paraphrase ours. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  3. Vellala Sadasiva Sastri, Velugotivari Vamsacaritramu (1910), pp. 28–29 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Telugu; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  4. Sreenivasachar (ed.), Corpus, Part III (1956), p. 5, No. Km. 3 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

  5. Epigraphia Telanganica, vol. 4 (2023), pp. 22–23, No. 10. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  6. Epigraphia Telanganica, vol. 4 (2023), p. 32, No. 14. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  7. Singabhupala, The Rasarnavasudhakara, ed. T. Ganapati Sastri (Trivandrum Sanskrit Series No. L, 1916), p. 2, verses 8–12 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Translation and paraphrase ours. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  8. M. Seshagiri Sastri, Report on a Search for Sanskrit and Tamil Manuscripts for the Year 1896-97, No. 1 (1898), pp. 7–8 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  9. Gajjala Vasanta Lakshmi (ed.), Epigraphia Telanganica, vol. 4 (2023), p. 20, No. 7. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

  10. Seshagiri Sastri, Report on a Search for Sanskrit and Tamil Manuscripts (1898), p. 8 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  11. V. Yashoda Devi, After the Kakatiyas (1975), p. 52. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  12. Yashoda Devi, After the Kakatiyas (1975), p. 53. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  13. Epigraphia Telanganica, vol. 4 (2023), p. 26, No. 10. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  14. Epigraphia Telanganica, vol. 4 (2023), p. 30, No. 12. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  15. Sadasiva Sastri, Velugotivari Vamsacaritramu (1910), pp. 58–59 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Telugu verse; translation ours. ↩

  16. Alladi Jagannatha Sastri, A Family History of Venkatagiri Rajas (1922), pp. 17–18 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  17. Yashoda Devi, After the Kakatiyas (1975), p. 63 and notes 123–125. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  18. Jagannatha Sastri, Family History of Venkatagiri Rajas (1922), p. 18 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  19. Yashoda Devi, After the Kakatiyas (1975), p. 64. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  20. N. Venkataramanayya, “Rajahmundry Museum Plates of the Telugu Choda Annadeva”, Epigraphia Indica XXVI (1941–42), p. 24 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

  21. A. S. Ramanatha Ayyar, “Conjeeveram Inscription of Brahma-tantra-svatantra-Jiyar: Saka 1282”, Epigraphia Indica XXV (1939–40), p. 323 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

  22. Epigraphia Telanganica, vol. 4 (2023), pp. 40–41, No. 29. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

Dynasties

Recherla Velamas

c. 1336–1475 CE

A family of Telugu warrior chiefs of the Recherla line and the Velama (Padmanayaka) community who rose after the fall of the Kakatiyas. Singama Nayaka's sons Anapota and Mada overthrew the Musunuri chief Kapaya Nayaka about 1368. They ruled Telangana from the hill forts of Rachakonda and Devarakonda for about a century, between the Bahmanis, the Reddis, Vijayanagara and the Gajapatis of Orissa. The king Singabhupala wrote the Sanskrit Rasarnavasudhakara, and tradition links the poets Srinatha and Potana with their court.

References

Sources (9)
  1. P. Sreenivasachar (ed.), A Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts of Andhra Pradesh, Part III (opens in a new tab), Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1956, pp. 5, 72–73, 119. Nos. Km. 3, Mn. 35, Wg. 1. Paraphrased. [Public domain in India]
  2. Singabhupala; ed. T. Ganapati Sastri, The Rasarnavasudhakara of Singabhupala (Trivandrum Sanskrit Series No. L) (opens in a new tab), Government of His Highness the Maharajah of Travancore, Trivandrum, 1916, pp. 1–3. Opening verses 5–15; translation ours. [Public domain]
  3. M. Seshagiri Sastri, Report on a Search for Sanskrit and Tamil Manuscripts for the Year 1896-97, No. 1 (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1898, pp. 7–8. [Public domain]
  4. Vellala Sadasiva Sastri, Velugotivari Vamsacaritramu leka Venkatagirirajula Vamsacaritramu (వెలుగోటివారి వంశచరిత్రము) (opens in a new tab), Madras (Chennapuri), 1910, pp. 28–29, 58–59. Family chronicle (Telugu prose); paraphrased. [Public domain]
  5. Alladi Jagannatha Sastri, A Family History of Venkatagiri Rajas (opens in a new tab), Addison Press, Madras, 1922, pp. 17–18. [Public domain]
  6. N. P. Chakravarti (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXVI (1941–42) (opens in a new tab), Manager of Publications, Delhi, 1942, pp. 24. N. Venkataramanayya, Rajahmundry Museum plates of Annadeva. Paraphrased. [Public domain in India]
  7. N. P. Chakravarti (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXV (1939–40) (opens in a new tab), Manager of Publications, Delhi, 1940, pp. 323. A. S. Ramanatha Ayyar. Paraphrased. [Public domain in India]
  8. V. Yashoda Devi, After the Kakatiyas (opens in a new tab), Andhra Pradesh Sahitya Akademi, Hyderabad, 1975, pp. 52–53, 63–64. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  9. Gajjala Vasanta Lakshmi (ed.); Gautam Pingle (gen. ed.), Epigraphia Telanganica, Vol. 4: Post-Kakatiya Telangana, Dr MCR Human Resource Development Institute, Government of Telangana, 2023, pp. 20, 22–23, 26, 30, 32, 40–41. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]

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