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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA the survivors as well as the sons of those that perished in the struggle, acknowledged their supremacy and leadership and served them faithfully. Let us see if we can spot out any of the Nāyakas that served Prōla and Kāpa and co-operate with them in liberating the country. With the fall of Warangal, the leadership of the coastal region passed from the hands of the kings of the Lunar and Solar dynasties into those of the Nāyakas of the Musunūri family of the fourth caste. Of the other Nāyakas of this period, we already know that Vēma was one. Most of the chiefs, ministers and commanders of the Kākatīya emperor, Pratāparudra, lost their lives in the last fatal siege of Warangal. A few, who had survived the disaster, are known to us from both inscriptions and literature. One of them was Kolani Rudradēva alias Pratāparudra, the mahāpradhāni of Kākati Pratāparudra and son of Gannaya-mantri. He was a contemporary of Anna-mantri and a great Sanskrit scholar and the author of Rājarudrīyaṁ, a work on grammar.[1] He was the grandson of Kolani Sōma-mantri, the minister of Kākati Gaṇapatidēva and the subjugator of the māṇḍalikas of Kolanuvīḍu or Sarasīpurī. It is known from the Śivayōgasāraṁ, a Telugu work on Śaiva theology, written by Gaṇapatidēva of the Kolani family, that Kolani Rudradēva had taken part in the expedition to Kāñchīpura (1315 A.D.) during the reign of Pratāparudra and defeated the five Pāṇḍya chiefs. The statement in the same work that he protected the stone fort of Warangal so as to win the commendation of Kākatēśa (i.e. Pratāparudra) and that he slew some Yavana chiefs, makes it clear that he had taken an active part in the wars with the Mussalmans. Yet it appears strange that none of his records prior to 1323 A.D. has come to light. An epigraph at Santamāgalūru[2] in the Guntur District dated in the cyclic year Kshaya, corresponding to Śaka 1248 (1326 A.D.) in the reign of Kākati Pratāparudra, registers a gift of land to the temple of Gōpīnātha of that village by Kolani Rudradēva for the merit of that king on the occasion of a solar eclipse. Pratāparudra, as we know, was already dead by the date of this record. It has therefore to be presumed that Rudradēva, the donor of the record, shook off by that time the Muslim yoke and was free to make at his will a grant of land for the merit of his late master out of respect and devotion.
Another survivor was Anna-mantri of the Beṇḍapūḍi family, the Gajasāhiṇi of Kākati Pratāparudra, who is described in the Bhīmēśvara Purāṇaṁ of Śrīnātha as the veritable fire in annihilating the Yavanas and the establisher of the throne of the adhyaksha of the Āndhra country.[3] The term adhyaksha, which means supervisor or president (and not king), no doubt refers to Prōlaya-nāyaka, and probably to Kāpaya-nāyaka also after him. This title suggests that it was through the successful efforts of Anna-mantri that the selection of the supervisor or the president of the confederacy of nobles of the Āndhra country was made possible and that the president so elected was made acceptable to all the chiefs, who combined together to liberate the country. The title is meaningless, if this is not its import. Thus, the title indicates, in unmistakable terms, the successful and prominent part played by Anna-mantri of the Beṇḍapūḍi family. The same work. Bhīmēśvara Purāṇaṁ, referred to above, informs us that Anna-mantri received the village of Ārēḍu, which was full of many crops grown by the supply of canal waters, as an agrahāra on the occasion of a solar eclipse. There must have been some significance for the special mention of Rudradēva’s gift of this village to Anna-mantri. If this solar eclipse, on which the village was granted, was the same as that mentioned in Rudradēva’s Santamāgalūru record, cited above, this grant must have been made to Anna-mantri soon after the successful culmination of the war of independence and the liberation of the coastal region, probably in appreciation of his services to _____________________________________________
[1] Rājarudrīyam : Ādirāja-Kākatīya-Pratāparudra-pradhāna-varyasya Mudrāka-Gannaya-sūnu-rachitaṁ Vārttika-vyākhyānam.
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