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Tripurantakam

Temple village in the Markapur country, in the old Kurnool district and the later Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh, with the temple of Tripurantakesvara. Kannada inscriptions of the Western Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI stand there. One of them, of 1126, names his general Anantapala as ruler of the Vengi twelve-thousand. They mark the eastern reach of the kingdom of Kalyani.

A grey stone slab with a rounded top, carved with a warrior fighting an animal, with worn lines of letters on the stone.
A grey stone slab with a rounded top, carved with a warrior fighting an animal, with worn lines of letters on the stone. · Adityamadhav83 (opens in a new tab) · CC BY 4.0 (opens in a new tab)

The temple of Tripurantakesvara stands at Tripurantakam, in the Markapur taluk of the Kurnool district.123 It holds several Kannada inscriptions of the reign of the Western Chalukya king Tribhuvanamalla, Vikramaditya VI.123 They were published in South-Indian Inscriptions IX, part I (1939).123

One is on a pillar to the east of the temple’s dark room, and it is dated Chalukya-Vikrama year 47 (1122).123 Two of June 1126 record gifts by his general Anantapala and by Anantapala’s nephew Govinda.123 See the Tripurantakam inscription of Anantapala.

The eastern edge of the Chalukya kingdom

The Manual of the Kurnool District (1886) wrote about the eastward extent of the Chalukya kingdom.4 It noted that “an inscription of Vikrama at Tripurantakam shows that this limit … extended as far at least as the eastern boundary of the present Kurnool District”.4 Robert Sewell took the Tripurantakam record of 1126 to disclose “the extent of his dominions on the east”.5

The temple remained important under the Kakatiyas.6 In 1908 H. Krishna Sastri noted that its mandapa (pillared hall) was built in 1254–55 under the orders of the Kakatiya king Ganapati.6

Footnotes

  1. R. Shama Sastry (ed.), South-Indian Inscriptions IX, pt. I (1939), p. 203, No. 204 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  2. South-Indian Inscriptions IX, pt. I (1939), p. 213 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. South-Indian Inscriptions IX, pt. I (1939), p. 214, No. 213 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  4. Narahari Gopalakristnamah Chetty, A Manual of the Kurnool District (1886), p. 20 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  5. Robert Sewell, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 99 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased except for the short phrase quoted. ↩

  6. H. Krishna Sastri, “Anmakonda Inscription of Prola; the Chalukya-Vikrama Year Forty-Two”, Epigraphia Indica IX (1908), p. 257, note (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

Photos

People

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.

Gangaya Sahini

c. 1239–1257 CE

Kayastha chief and cavalry commander of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva. The king made him head of the seventy-two branches of administration (bahattara-niyogadhipati) and gave him a great fief from Panugallu to the Cuddapah country, which he ruled from Valluru. His nephews Jannigadeva, Tripurari and Ambadeva succeeded him, and the last rebelled against Rudramadevi.

Rajendra III (Chola)

c. 1246–1267 CE

The last Chola king (1246 to about 1267). His regnal years were still used by the Telugu Choda rulers of Nellore, among them Manumasiddhi, the patron of the poet Tikkana, and a Tamil record dated in his reign survives in the Gudur country of Nellore as late as 1263–64. An inscription of 1260–61 at Tripurantakam claims victories for him over two Pandya kings, which V. Rangacharya took for a real campaign and Robert Sewell did not. The Cuddapah gazetteer dates his death, and the end of the Cholas, to 1268.

Ambadeva (Kayastha)

c. 1272–1294 CE

Kayastha chief (r. 1272–c. 1294) of Valluru in the Cuddapah country, and nephew of Gangaya Sahini. He threw off the authority of the Kakatiya queen Rudramadevi and built an independent state south-west of the Krishna with Yadava and Pandya support. He proclaimed his victories at Tripurantakam in 1290. Prataparudra's armies drove him from Tripurantakam in 1291.

Induluri Annaya

c. 1289–1323 CE

Brahman minister and general of the Induluri family, son-in-law of Queen Rudramadevi and a chief minister (mahapradhana) of Prataparudra. In 1291 he led the Kakatiya army that won back Tripurantakam from the Kayastha chief Ambadeva. He later governed the Vengi country.

Inscriptions

Tripurantakam inscription of Anantapala

1126 CE

A Kannada inscription of June 1126 in the Tripurantakesvara temple at Tripurantakam, in the old Kurnool district, of the reign of the Western Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI. It says that his general Anantapala was ruling the Vengi twelve-thousand and the Emmedale six-thousand. It also says that Anantapala's nephew Govinda, ruler of the Kondapalli three-hundred, conquered the Chola country. Robert Sewell took it as evidence that the Cholas had lost Vengi to the Western Chalukyas.

Tripurantakam inscription of Ambadeva

1290 CE

A Sanskrit and Telugu inscription of Saka 1212 (1290) at the Tripurantakesvara temple, Tripurantakam. In it the Kayastha chief Ambadeva confirms the temple's villages and lists his wars against Rudramadevi's nobles, without naming any overlord. It is the main record of the rebellion that troubled the end of her reign.

References

Sources (4)
  1. R. Shama Sastry (ed.), South-Indian Inscriptions (Texts), Vol. IX, Part I: Kannada Inscriptions from the Madras Presidency (opens in a new tab), Manager of Publications, Delhi, 1939, pp. 203, 213–214. South-Indian Inscriptions IX, pt. I (1939); paraphrased. [Public domain in India]
  2. Narahari Gopalakristnamah Chetty, A Manual of the Kurnool District in the Presidency of Madras (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1886, pp. 20. [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. 99. Paraphrased. [Public domain in India]
  4. E. Hultzsch and Sten Konow (eds.), Epigraphia Indica, Vol. IX (1907–08) (opens in a new tab), Government of India, Calcutta, 1908, pp. 257. [Public domain]

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