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Hanamkonda

Anumakonda, the first Kakatiya capital beside Warangal. It has the Thousand Pillar Temple, the Padmakshi hill shrine and the Kakatiya inscriptions that record the dynasty's rise.

Photograph inside a temple porch: massive lathe-turned stone pillars with ringed shafts and square bases, and carved beams overhead.
Photograph inside a temple porch: massive lathe-turned stone pillars with ringed shafts and square bases, and carved beams overhead. · Fanny Bullock Workman and William Hunter Workman (opens in a new tab) · Public domain

The first Kakatiya capital

Hanamkonda, the Anumakonda or Anmakonda of the inscriptions, was the seat of the Kakatiya chiefs before they built Warangal (Orugallu) nearby.12 P. V. Parabrahma Sastry cites a Rashtrakuta-period inscription of 872 CE that already names the town.2 He traces the Kakatiya connection to Beta I, the first of the family known to have settled there.2

Rudradeva’s great inscription of 1163 calls Anumakonda his capital.13 It praises it as a city of temples, learned Brahmans and courtesans’ houses, where parrots repeated what they heard.13 Malik Kafur’s army approached Warangal in 1309.4 Amir Khusrau wrote that it first occupied “the hill of An Makinda, for from that all the edifices and gardens of Arangal can be seen”.4

Monuments

The best-known building is the Thousand Pillar Temple, Rudradeva’s Rudreshvara temple of 1163.15 The Imperial Gazetteer and A. Claude Campbell’s Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898) give 1162 instead.56 This is a conversion of the inscription’s Saka year 1084 that does not allow for its January date.56 T. W. Haig (1907) gives 1163.7

On the hill above the town is the shrine of the goddess Padmakshi.89 Beside it an inscription of 1117, from the time of Prola II, records the building of a Jain basadi (temple).89 Parabrahma Sastry argued that the goddess was originally a Jain deity, later worshipped as a Hindu one.89

Rudradeva’s minister Gangadhara built a temple of Prasanna Keshava with a tank.1011 Parabrahma Sastry identified his large tank with the one near the present Hanamkonda bus stand.1011 The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 also notes Jain figures cut in the rocks near the ruined town of Hanmantgiri, and two large tanks on either side of the town.12

Later history

The Imperial Gazetteer records a local tradition drawn from the Telugu chronicle Pratapa Charitra.13 By this tradition Hanamkonda was the capital of the region before Warangal was founded, and a legendary prince born there was the first Kakatiya king.13 The gazetteer adds that the Kakatiyas do not appear in authentic records before the middle of the twelfth century.13

In 1900 the archaeologist Henry Cousens could write that Warangal had become a suburb of Hanamkonda.14 In 1901 Hanamkonda had 10,487 inhabitants.13 It was the headquarters of the Warangal Division and District of Hyderabad State.13

Campbell’s account of 1898 describes Hanamkonda as a growing town of about 10,000 people, 82 miles east-north-east of Hyderabad.6 It was the headquarters of the subahdar, who governed the division, and of the chief officials of Warangal District.6 It had a post office, a municipality, a dispensary, a Baptist chapel, and a jail where carpets and towels were made.6

Campbell says that the town had grown steadily since the railway came.6 A large part of the Hyderabad Contingent had once been stationed there, though by then only about twenty Europeans lived in it.6 He describes it as a centre of trade with Hyderabad and the east coast.6 It exported carpets, cloth, grain, oilseed, cotton, hemp, hides and timber.6

He also mentions Muslim families, said to be of Persian descent, who made daggers, swords and spearheads.6 The Imperial Gazetteer confirms the town’s offices and Central jail, and its fame for silk and cotton cloth and carpets.1215

Footnotes

  1. J. F. Fleet, Sanskrit and Old-Canarese Inscriptions, No. CXVIII, Indian Antiquary XI (1882), p. 9 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 172. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. Fleet, Sanskrit and Old-Canarese Inscriptions, No. CXVIII (1882), p. 20 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  4. H. M. Elliot and John Dowson, The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians, vol. III (1871), p. 80 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  5. Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 173 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. A. Claude Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 480 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  7. T. W. Haig, Historic Landmarks of the Deccan (1907), pp. 65, 68 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  8. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 74. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  9. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), pp. 24, 273. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 102. ↩ ↩2

  11. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 204. ↩ ↩2

  12. Imperial Gazetteer: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 173 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  13. Imperial Gazetteer: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 172 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  14. Henry Cousens, Lists of Antiquarian Remains in His Highness the Nizam’s Territories (1900), p. 46. ↩

  15. Imperial Gazetteer: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 167 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

Photos

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Dynasties

Kakatiyas

c. 1163–1323 CE

Dynasty of Anumakonda (Hanamkonda) and Orugallu (Warangal). The Kakatiyas were Rashtrakuta and then Western Chalukya feudatories from the tenth century. They declared their sovereignty under Rudradeva in 1163, and under Ganapatideva they ruled the Telugu country from Telangana to the coast. Rudramadevi reigned as king under the name Rudradeva, and her grandson Prataparudra fell to the Delhi Sultanate in the 1320s. Their rule rested on allied chiefs, nayaka commanders holding land for military service, and village assemblies. It is remembered for its tanks, its temples, the Motupalli sea-trade edict and its court literature.

People

Beta I

c. 996–1051 CE

Early Kakatiya chief (c. 996–1051), also called Garuda Beta. As a boy he lost his father in war, and later he won back the family's position. His one known record, an inscription of 1051 at Sanigaram, is the oldest Kakatiya record after the Mangallu grant.

Prola I

c. 1052–1076 CE

Kakatiya chief (c. 1052–1076), son of Beta I. He fought for the Western Chalukya king Trailokyamalla (Someshvara I), who gave him the district of Anumakonda as a permanent fief (land held from a king). He bore the title ari-gaja-kesari, and the family's boar emblem was later credited to him.

Beta II

c. 1076–1108 CE

Kakatiya chief (c. 1076–1108) who took the name Tribhuvanamalla from his overlord, the Western Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI. He held Anumakonda as a Chalukya feudatory (subordinate ruler) and won the Sabbi-nadu district through his minister. He gave lands to the Kalamukha Shaiva teacher Rameshvara Pandita.

Vikramaditya VI

c. 1076–1126 CE

Western Chalukya king of Kalyani, called Tribhuvanamalla. He deposed his brother Somesvara II in 1076 and reigned for fifty years, to 1126. He replaced the Saka era with his own Chalukya-Vikrama era, in which most Telangana records of the time are dated. As a prince he fought the Cholas and their Eastern Chalukya allies for Vengi. Late in his reign, after the Chola viceroy left in 1118, he was recognised as king in Vengi and the coastal Telugu country. His feudatories in Telangana included the Kakatiyas Beta II and Prola II and the Choda chiefs of Kandur.

Durgaraja

c. 1108–1116 CE

Elder son of the Kakatiya chief Beta II. He is known from a single inscription of 1098 at Kazipet. He may have ruled briefly between about 1108 and 1116, before his younger brother Prola II took power.

Prola II

c. 1116–1157 CE

Kakatiya chief (r. c. 1116–1157), son of Beta II and father of Rudradeva. As a Western Chalukya feudatory (subordinate ruler) he defeated the rival chiefs around Anumakonda. He was killed in battle with chiefs of the coastal Andhra country.

Rudradeva

c. 1158–1195 CE

Kakatiya ruler (c. 1158–1195) who defeated the rival chiefs of Telangana. He proclaimed his family's independence in the Thousand Pillar Temple inscription of 1163, and began the fortified capital at Orugallu (Warangal).

Mahadeva

c. 1195–1199 CE

Kakatiya king (r. c. 1195–1199), younger brother of Rudradeva and father of Ganapatideva. He was killed in a night battle while attacking the capital of the Yadava (Seuna) kings.

Malik Kafur

c. 1309–1313 CE

Slave general of Sultan Ala-ud-din Khalji, called Malik Naib. He besieged Warangal in 1309–10 and forced the Kakatiya king Prataparudra to give up his treasure and pay yearly tribute. Then he crossed the Telugu country on his way to the far south, and he collected its tribute from Devagiri. This page covers only his part in the history of the Telugu country.

P. V. Narasimha Rao

Political leader from Andhra Pradesh. He was a member of the state assembly from 1957 to 1977 and a minister from 1962. As Chief Minister from 1971 to 1973 he faced the agitation that followed the Supreme Court's Mulki judgment of October 1972, and on 17 January 1973 the Governor reported his resignation. President's rule followed the next day. He sat in the Lok Sabha from 1977 to 1997, held several Union ministries and became Prime Minister.

Monuments

Padmakshi Temple, Hanamkonda

1117 CE

A small, plain temple on the hill south of Hanamkonda, now worshipped as the goddess Padmakshi. The inscribed pillar in front of it records that in December 1117, in the reign of the Kakatiya Prola II, Mailama, wife of the minister Beta, built a Jaina temple, the Kadalalaya-basadi, on the hill. H. Krishna Sastri took the temple to be that basadi and called it the earliest known building of the Kakatiya period.

Thousand Pillar Temple

1163 CE

The triple-shrined Rudreshvara temple at Hanamkonda, dedicated to Shiva, Vishnu and Surya. The Kakatiya ruler Rudradeva consecrated it in January 1163 and inscribed on it the record of his family's rise to power.

Inscriptions

Padmakshi temple inscription of Prola II

1117 CE

A Kannada and Sanskrit inscription on a four-sided pillar in front of the Padmakshi temple, on a small hill at Hanamkonda. It is dated in Chalukya-Vikrama year 42, which F. Kielhorn calculated as 24 December 1117. It names the Western Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI as overlord, and his feudatory, the Kakatiya Prola, son of Beta, ruling at Anmakunda. It records a Jaina temple built on the hill by the wife of Prola's minister. When H. Krishna Sastri published it in 1908, it was the earliest known Kakatiya record.

Thousand Pillar Temple inscription of Rudradeva

1163 CE

A Telugu and Sanskrit inscription of January 1163 CE at the Thousand Pillar Temple in Hanamkonda. It records that Rudradeva consecrated the temple's three gods. It also tells of the wars by which he and his father Prola II made the Kakatiyas masters of Telangana.

Hanamkonda inscription of Gangadhara

A broken, undated Sanskrit verse inscription from Hanamkonda. It records that Gangadhara, minister of the Kakatiya Rudradeva, built a temple of Prasanna-Keshava, tanks and shrines. It also describes the wars of Prola II and Rudradeva against Medaraja of Polavasa and other chiefs.

References

Sources (7)
  1. J. F. Fleet, Sanskrit and Old-Canarese Inscriptions, No. CXVIII (Kakatya inscription of Rudradeva at Anamkond, Saka 1084), Indian Antiquary, Vol. XI (opens in a new tab), Indian Antiquary (ed. Jas. Burgess), Bombay, 1882, pp. 9, 20. [Public domain]
  2. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal, Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1978, pp. 24, 74, 101–102, 172, 204, 273. Paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  3. Government of India, Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Hyderabad State (opens in a new tab), Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta, 1909, pp. 167, 172–173. [Public domain]
  4. A. Claude Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam's Dominions, Being an Exhaustive Photographic History of the Hyderabad State, Deccan, India (opens in a new tab), C. B. Burrows, Bombay, 1898, pp. 480. [Public domain]
  5. T. W. Haig, Historic Landmarks of the Deccan (opens in a new tab), Pioneer Press, Allahabad, 1907, pp. 65, 68. [Public domain]
  6. H. M. Elliot and John Dowson (eds.), The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan Period, Vol. III (opens in a new tab), Trübner and Co., London, 1871. [Public domain]
  7. Henry Cousens, Lists of Antiquarian Remains in His Highness the Nizam's Territories (Archaeological Survey of India, New Imperial Series XXXI) (opens in a new tab), Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta, 1900, pp. 46. [Public domain]

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