The Kakatiyas of Warangal (An Old and Rare Book)

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In this book, the author has made an attempt to present an authentic account of the Kakatiyas, one of the major dynasties that ruled over the Telugu country for about two centuries prior to the advent of the Muslim rule in South India. It was a period when the political map of the Deccan was redrawn consequent on the fall of the two great powers, namely the Western Chalukyas in the middle Deccan and the Cholas in the South. The subject matter of the present study therefore relates to the Telugu people as a separate entity which was free from the influence of outside sovereign authority.

The newly discovered inscriptions at Bayyaram and Sanigaram shed considerable light on the origin, genealogy and chronology of the Kakatiyas which the author has discussed at great length in the second chapter of the book.

Though the famous Anumakonda inscription of Kakati Rudradeva which was edited by Dr. J. F. Fleet about a century ago, furnishes a graphic account of the proclamation of the Kakattya sovereign rule some time before A.D. 1163, it still raises certain problems relating to the circumstances under which Rudra could assume sovereign power. The present author's review of that historical document, with his comparative study of the records of other subordinate families like the Mudigonda Chalukyas, the Kanduri Chodas and the Polavasa Chiefs in Telingana, sheds new light on the history of the region during the Western Chalukya period.

With Orugallu as capital the Kakatiyas ruled over the Telugu country from about A.D. 1150 to A.D. 1323. Methodical researches in the history of this glorious period started with the masterly edition of the Anumakonda inscription of Kakati Rudradeva by J. F. Fleet in 1882. Subsequently several scholars have contributed much for the Kakatiya history, the latest being the chapter by Dr. N. Venkataramanayya and M. Somasekhara Sarma in the Early History of the Deccan edited by Dr. G. Yazdani in 1960. However, half of the Telugu country known as Telangana where lies Warangal, the seat of the Kakatiyas, being under the rule of the Nizam remained hardly accessible for outside researchers, and as a result most of the epigraphs in that important area of the Kakatiya kingdom remained unexplored. The early writers on the subject were therefore, handicapped by the inadequacy of the main soures material, the epigraphs. Andhra Pradesh Government in the year 1964 set up a separate wing in the State Archaeological department for conducting epigraphical survey and publishing districtwise volumes of all the available epigraphs in the State. Under the scheme, the districts of Warangal, Karimnagar and Nalgonda including some important places in other districts are surveyed and a good number of new inscriptions are discovered and published. It is found in the light of the new discoveries that the history of the Kakatiyas, hitherto known to scholars needs some additions and alterations.