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Telugu Historyతెలుగు చరిత్ర

Addanki

Town on the Gundlakamma river, formerly in Ongole taluk. A stone here carries the 9th-century Telugu verse inscription of Pandaranga. Later records name it as the centre of the 'Addanki country'.

Location

Addanki stands on the banks of the Gundlakamma river, at 15°49′ N and 79°58′ E.1 In 1908 it was a town of 7,230 people (1901 census) in the Ongole taluk of Guntur district.1 It was 23 miles from Ongole railway station.1 The Imperial Gazetteer described it as the centre of a pulse-growing and cattle-breeding country with a large grain trade.2

When Ongole taluk still belonged to Nellore district, the government held an annual cattle show at Addanki, begun in 1859.3 In 1870 the show was held experimentally at Ongole instead.4

The Pandaranga inscription

Addanki is best known for the stone inscription of Pandaranga, army commander of the Eastern Chalukya king Gunaga-Vijayaditya III. When it was edited in the 1920s, the stone lay in a field at Addanki.5 Its opening Telugu verse is in the taruvoja metre.6 Its editor took this verse as evidence that Telugu poetry was being written by the middle of the 9th century.6

The prose part records a gift of land to the Sun god at Dammavuram.6 The editor identified Dammavuram with Dharmavaram near Addanki, where two more inscriptions of Pandaranga were known.6 He guessed that Pandaranga had reached Addanki from the Kurnool side after his campaign against the Boyas.7

Later records

The 1905 Nellore inscription survey found eight short inscriptions on the pillars of the Nageswara temple at Addanki.8 It judged them “not worth printing”.8 It also recorded a Telugu inscription on the Ramaswami temple wall, about the plastering of that wall.8 That inscription is dated in Saka 1326 (about 1404–05; Saka is an Indian way of counting years).8

A Vijayanagara copper-plate grant of 1390–91 (Saka 1312) was issued in the name of Devaraya.9 It places the village it grants near Parachur “in the kingdom of Addanki” (Addanki-rashtra).9

Fort

The town had a ruined mud fort of about 79 acres. Local tradition, as reported in 1908, held that it was built or restored around 1400 by Haripaludu, son of Prataparudra. The same source says the Mondapati family of Ongole had ruled here about two centuries earlier.12 These are traditions recorded by the gazetteer, not facts established from inscriptions.

Footnotes

  1. Imperial Gazetteer of India: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 331 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. Imperial Gazetteer of India: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 332 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  3. Boswell, Manual of the Nellore District (1873), p. 74 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  4. John A. C. Boswell, A Manual of the Nellore District (1873), p. 76 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  5. K. V. Lakshmana Rao, “The Addanki Stone Inscription of Pandaranga”, Epigraphia Indica XIX (1928), p. 272 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  6. Lakshmana Rao, “Addanki Stone Inscription”, Epigraphia Indica XIX (1928), p. 273 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  7. Lakshmana Rao, “Addanki Stone Inscription”, Epigraphia Indica XIX (1928), p. 274 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  8. A. Butterworth and V. Venugopaul Chetty, Nellore District Inscriptions, Part II (1905), p. 895 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  9. A. Butterworth and V. Venugopaul Chetty, Nellore District Inscriptions, Part I (1905), pp. 1–2 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

Photos

Dynasties

Reddis of Kondaveedu

c. 1325–1424 CE

Telugu dynasty of the Panta Reddi family. It rose on the coast after the fall of the Kakatiyas and ruled for about a hundred years, from about 1325 to the 1420s, first from Addanki and then from the hill fortress of Kondavidu. Its six kings, from Prolaya Vema to Racha Vema, held the country between Srisailam and the sea and at times the Godavari delta. They built the flights of steps at Srisailam and Ahobilam, fought the Recherla Velamas, Vijayanagara and the Bahmanis, and kept a court where Errapragada and Srinatha wrote. Under Kumaragiri the eastern half of the kingdom became a separate state at Rajahmundry.

People

Gunaga Vijayaditya III

c. 844–888 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (c. 844–888). His records claim victories over the Gangas, the Nolamba king Mangi, a chief Sankila of Dahala and the Rashtrakuta Krishna, and the burning of Kiranapura and Chakrakuta. Historians have seen him both as the man who sacked the Rashtrakuta capital and as a Rashtrakuta vassal. His general Pandaranga is praised in one of the earliest Telugu verse inscriptions.

Pandaranga

c. 844–888 CE

Army commander of the Eastern Chalukya king Gunaga Vijayaditya III in the second half of the 9th century, praised in the Telugu verse inscription at Addanki. Later grants credit him with burning Kiranapura, the home of the Rashtrakuta Krishna II and his ally Sankila. He was the executor of his king's grants, and his descendants held the office of Katakaraja under the later kings.

Errapragada

c. 1280–1350 CE

Telugu poet of the 14th century, the third of the 'Kavitraya' who completed the Telugu Mahabharata. He finished the Aranya Parva that Nannaya had left incomplete. He was a Niyogi Brahman of Gudluru in the Nellore country and a devotee of Siva (Sambhudasa). He was attached to Prolaya Vema, the founder of the Reddi kingdom, and dedicated his Harivamsa to him. He also wrote a Ramayana and the Narasimha Purana for the god of Ahobilam.

Prolaya Vema Reddi

c. 1325–1353 CE

Founder of the Reddi kingdom of Addanki and Kondavidu (c. 1325–1353). He took over the country between Srisailam and the sea after the fall of the Kakatiyas. His grants of 1345 and 1346 say he restored the Brahman villages seized by the Muslim conquerors of Warangal. Later records remember him for the flights of steps at Srisailam and Ahobilam, and the poet Errapragada dedicated his Harivamsa to him.

Anavota Reddi

c. 1353–1364 CE

Second Reddi king of Addanki (c. 1353–1364), elder son of Prolaya Vema. His only known copper-plate grant, from Koduru (1358), and his renewal of the Kakatiya charter for sea merchants at Motupalli (1358) survive. A Velama chronicle claims a victory over him at Dharanikota in 1361. His son Kumaragiri and his son-in-law Kataya Vema later ruled at Kondavidu and Rajahmundry.

Inscriptions

Addanki inscription of Pandaranga

c. 844 CE

A damaged stone inscription of the mid-9th century from Addanki. Its opening Telugu verse, in the taruvoja metre, praises Pandaranga, army commander of the Eastern Chalukya king Gunaga-Vijayaditya III.

References

Sources (5)
  1. Government of India, Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Madras, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta, 1908, pp. 331–332. [Public domain]
  2. Hirananda Sastri (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XIX (1927–28) (opens in a new tab), Archaeological Survey of India, 1928, pp. 272–274. [Public domain]
  3. Alan Butterworth and V. Venugopaul Chetty, A Collections of the Inscriptions on Copper-Plates and Stones in the Nellore District, Madras, in Three Parts, Part II (opens in a new tab), 1905, pp. 895–896. [Public domain]
  4. Alan Butterworth and V. Venugopaul Chetty, A Collection of the Inscriptions on Copper-Plates and Stones in the Nellore District, Part I (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1905, pp. 1–2. [Public domain]
  5. John A. C. Boswell, A Manual of the Nellore District in the Presidency of Madras (opens in a new tab), Government of Madras, 1873, pp. 74, 76. [Public domain]

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