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Pottapi

Village on the Cheyyeru river in the former Pullampet taluk of Kadapa district. It was the early seat of the Telugu Choda chiefs who called themselves Madhurantaka Pottapi-Cholas. They governed the Pakanadu for the Chola emperors from the 11th or 12th century until they moved to Nellore.

The town of the Pottapi-Cholas

Brackenbury’s Cuddapah (Kadapa) gazetteer (1915) identified the Pottapi of the inscriptions with this village.1 He did so “with absolute certainty with the village of that name situated on the bank of the river Cheyyēr in Pullampet taluk”.1 Earlier, a note in H. Lüders’s article of 1903 had pointed to a village “Potapi” in the same taluk, near “Tongootoor”.2 The note is signed “E. H.”, the initials of E. Hultzsch, who edited that volume of Epigraphia Indica.23

The Tiruvalangadu inscription of Tammusiddhi tells of an ancestor of the Telugu Chodas.4 After conquering Madura, this ancestor “founded in (the country of) the Andhras the town called Pottapi”.4 He took the title Pottapi-Chola.4 Brackenbury recorded that one Dasavarman, grandfather of a Choda chief, conquered the Paka country and ruled at Pottapi, about 1000 by his reckoning.1

Seat of the Merpakanadu

The Chola province that the Pottapi-Cholas governed was the Pakanadu.5 Its Kadapa (then Cuddapah) part, with Pottapi as headquarters, was the Merpakanadu or “west Paka country”.5 Pottapi remained the seat of the family until Tikka I and Manumasiddhi II ruled the Pakanadu from Nellore.56

Sewell lists a chief Betta ruling the Pottapinadu in 1120–21.7 He also lists records of Manumasiddhi II at Pottapi in 1258–59.8 Brackenbury held that after 1268 the Pottapi country passed to the Kayastha chief Ambadeva.9 Ambadeva’s officer had a land survey of the Pottapinadu carried out.9 See the Telugu Chodas of Pottapi and Nellore.

Footnotes

  1. C. F. Brackenbury, Madras District Gazetteers: Cuddapah (1915), p. 30 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. H. Lüders, “Two Inscriptions of Tammusiddhi, Saka-Samvat 1129”, Epigraphia Indica VII (1903), p. 121, note 5 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  3. E. Hultzsch (ed.), Epigraphia Indica VII (1902–03), title page (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  4. Lüders, “Two Inscriptions of Tammusiddhi” (1903), p. 125, translation (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. Brackenbury, Cuddapah (1915), p. 31 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. Brackenbury, Cuddapah (1915), p. 32 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  7. Robert Sewell, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 97 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

  8. Sewell, Historical Inscriptions (1932), p. 153 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

  9. Brackenbury, Cuddapah (1915), p. 34 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

Dynasties

Telugu Chodas of Pottapi and Nellore

c. 1120–1316 CE

A family of Telugu chiefs who called themselves Madhurantaka Pottapi-Cholas and Ganda-Gopalas and claimed descent from the Chola king Karikala. They ruled the Pakanadu country of Nellore and southern Kadapa (Cuddapah) from Pottapi and then Nellore, from the early 12th century to about 1316. First vassals of the Cholas, they took Kanchi under Tikka I and his successors. They then passed under the Kakatiyas, who restored Manumasiddhi II, the patron of the poet Tikkana. A related branch ruled Konidena in the Guntur country.

People

Kulottunga III (Chola)

1178–1216 CE

Chola king (1178–1216), the last strong ruler of the dynasty. The Telugu Choda chiefs of Pottappi and Nellore, among them Nallasiddha, Tammusiddhi and Tikka, dated their records in his reign, and inscriptions of his years are found at Nellore, in the Gudur country and at Kalahasti, whose temple he renewed. The Cuddapah gazetteer credits him with restoring Chola power in the Paka-nadu in 1196, while the Kakatiyas took over the old Chola lands north of the Krishna.

Manumasiddhi II

c. 1248 CE

Telugu Choda king of Nellore from about 1248 or 1250, son of Tikka I and patron of the poet Tikkana Somayaji. He was driven out of Nellore early in his reign. The Kakatiya king Ganapatideva restored him after Tikkana went to the Kakatiya court as his envoy, and he later fought for Ganapati against Kalinga on the Godavari. Whether he was the same king as Vijaya-Gandagopala of Kanchi is disputed.

Nannechoda

Telugu Choda prince of Pakanadu and author of the Kumarasambhavamu, a long Telugu poem on the birth of the war-god Kumara. The poem was found and printed only in the early 20th century, and scholars still argue over its date: its editor placed it before Nannaya, while Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao put the poet about 1150.

References

Sources (3)
  1. C. F. Brackenbury, Madras District Gazetteers: Cuddapah, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1915, pp. 30–34. [Public domain]
  2. E. Hultzsch (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, Vol. VII (1902–03), with Kielhorn's List of Inscriptions of Southern India (opens in a new tab), Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta (scan of the ASI 1981 facsimile reprint), 1903, title page, 121, 125. [Public domain]
  3. Robert Sewell (ed. S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar), The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (Collected till 1923) and Outlines of Political History (opens in a new tab), University of Madras, 1932, pp. 97, 153, 395. Paraphrased. [Public domain in India]

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