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Telugu Historyతెలుగు చరిత్ర

Gadwal

Town in Telangana. In 1909 it was the seat of the Gadwal samasthan (tributary estate) of the Raichur district of Hyderabad State. The Gadval plates of the Chalukya king Vikramaditya I, dated 674, were kept in a house there and were said to have been found in its fields.

In 1909 the Imperial Gazetteer listed Gadwal as one of the two samasthans (tributary estates) in the Raichur district of Hyderabad State, alongside the eight taluks.1

The Gadval plates

A schoolboy at Kurnool owned the Gadval plates of the Chalukya king Vikramaditya I.2 He said that they had been in his house at Gadval, “and that some old woman was saying that they were found in the fields”.2 E. Hultzsch edited them in Epigraphia Indica X.2

Footnotes

  1. Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 273 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  2. E. Hultzsch, “Gadval Plates of Vikramaditya I; A.D. 674”, Epigraphia Indica X (1910), p. 100 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

Photos

People

Vikramaditya I (Chalukya of Badami)

c. 655–680 CE

Chalukya king of Badami (about 655–680), a son of Pulakesin II. He restored the kingdom after the Pallavas took Badami, fought three Pallava kings and took Kanchi. His copper-plate grants come from the Telugu country: Amudalapadu and Gadwal in today's Telangana, the Kurnool district, Talamanchi near Nellore, and Hyderabad. His Amudalapadu plates of 660 record his initiation into the Shaiva faith. A queen of his installed a linga at Alampur.

Ranmast Khan (Munawwar Khan, Nawab of Kurnool)

1752–1792 CE

Pathan Nawab of Kurnool from 1752 to 1792, the brother of Himmat Bahadur Khan, called Ranmast Khan and Munawwar Khan. His brother died, and the French stormed Kurnool in 1751. He came back from Arcot and raised troops with money from the Nawab of Cuddapah and the help of the deshmukh of Kurnool. In 1752 he won back his capital from the Nizam's officer and the raja of Gadwal. He paid tribute to the Nizam and, from 1769 or about 1775, to Haidar Ali. Local tradition says he paid Haidar after a holy man's attempt to frighten Haidar failed. Tipu Sultan pressed him for unpaid tribute. His son Alif Khan led his horsemen with the Nizam's army against Tipu in 1790–92, and he died in 1792.

Inscriptions

Gadval plates of Vikramaditya I

674 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the 20th year of the Chalukya king Vikramaditya I, dated 25 April 674. It was kept at Gadwal (then in Hyderabad State, now in Telangana) and is said to have been found in the fields there. Issued from a camp at Uragapura on the south bank of the Kaveri, it names the three Pallava kings whom Vikramaditya defeated. E. Hultzsch noted two Telugu terms for measures of grain in it.

References

Sources (2)
  1. Sten Konow and V. Venkayya (eds.), Epigraphia Indica, Vol. X (1909–10) (opens in a new tab), Government Printing, India, Calcutta, 1910, pp. 100. E. Hultzsch, Gadval Plates of Vikramaditya I. [Public domain]
  2. Government of India, Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Hyderabad State (opens in a new tab), Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta, 1909, pp. 273. [Public domain]

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