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Telugu Historyతెలుగు చరిత్ర

Srirangam

Temple town on the Kaveri in the old Trichinopoly district, Tamil Nadu. An inscription of 1317 in its Ranganatha temple records the victory of the Kakatiya general Devari-nayaka at Tiruvadikunram. It also records how he put Sundara-Pandya back on the throne.

A tall white stepped temple gateway tower covered in rows of sculpted figures, under a clear blue sky.
A tall white stepped temple gateway tower covered in rows of sculpted figures, under a clear blue sky. · Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (opens in a new tab) · CC BY 2.0 (opens in a new tab)

The Kakatiya inscription

The Ranganatha temple at Srirangam, in the Tiruchirappalli (then Trichinopoly) district, has a damaged inscription of 1317 on the south wall of its Chandana-mandapa.1 It is in the Telugu language and the Grantha script.1 It records that Devari-nayaka, a general of the Kakatiya king Prataparudra, marched against the Pandyas.12

Devari-nayaka defeated Vira-Pandya and the Kerala king at Tiruvadikunram, and installed Sundara-Pandya at Viradhavalam.12 To mark the victory he made a gift, evidently to the Ranganatha temple.12 A shorter copy of the inscription is in the Jambukesvara temple at Tiruvanaikkaval nearby.1 See the Srirangam inscription of Prataparudra.

Footnotes

  1. V. Venkatasubba Ayyar, “Srirangam Inscription of Kakatiya Prataparudra; Saka 1239”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 304 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. Venkatasubba Ayyar, “Srirangam Inscription of Kakatiya Prataparudra” (1956), p. 312 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

Photos

People

Jatavarman Sundara Pandya I

c. 1251–1268 CE

Pandya king of Madurai who came to the throne in 1251 and led the second Pandya empire to its height. His records claim the defeat of the Hoysala Somesvara, the capture of Kopperunjinga's fortress, the occupation of Kanchi after killing Gandagopala, and a victory over the Telugus and their allies at Mudugur, from which he drove them to the Krishna. He was anointed as conqueror at Nellore. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry dates the battle at Muttukuru to 1263 and adds that he struck coins with the Kakatiya boar. Robert Sewell doubted the northern march.

Morari Rao Ghorpade

c. 1741–1776 CE

A Maratha soldier who fought for pay, of the Ghorpade family. He was lord of Gooty from the 1740s until Haidar Ali took the fortress in 1776. The Marathas left him as governor of Trichinopoly in 1741. He gave it up to the first Nizam in the mid-1740s and was accepted as chief of Gooty under the subahdar of the Deccan. His horsemen, whom Orme thought the best Indian soldiers of the day, fought in the Carnatic wars for Muhammad Ali and the English, for Mysore and for the French. Later they fought with the English against Haidar. He held Penukonda and Madakasira and took tribute from the Anantapur poligars. After a long siege of Gooty he surrendered to Haidar and died a prisoner at Kabbaldurga.

Inscriptions

Srirangam inscription of Prataparudra

1317 CE

A Telugu inscription in Grantha script of 28 March 1317 in the Ranganatha temple at Srirangam. It records that Prataparudra's general Devari-nayaka defeated Vira-Pandya and the Kerala king Ravivarman Kulasekhara at Tiruvadikunram. He then put Sundara-Pandya back on his throne.

References

Sources (1)
  1. B. Ch. Chhabra and N. Lakshminarayan Rao (eds.), Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXVII (1947–48) (opens in a new tab), Archaeological Survey of India, 1956, pp. 304, 312. V. Venkatasubba Ayyar. Paraphrased. [Public domain in India]

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