History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c28: Chapter XIX. The Foundation of the Empire—Kapilendra
History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c28
- Language
- English
Contents
- v1.c28.9 — 7 parts
Chapter XIX. The Foundation of the Empire—Kapilendra
v1.c28.2
The fall of the Eastern Gaṅgas was followed by a sudden accession of power of the monarchs of Kaliṅga and Orissa, which was unparalleled except, perhaps, in the time of Khāravela. Kapilendra or Kapileśvara, originally a Mahāpātra, obtained the throne in 1435-36. A. D. The late Mr. Monmohan Chakravarti’s calculations have proved beyond doubt that the actual date of his coronation or accession to the throne was 1435 A.D., proving thereby that all manuscripts of the Mādalā Pāñji and, therefore, modern accounts based on them, are hopelessly wrong. In his account of the dynasty founded by Kapilendra, Mr. Chakravarti has proved that :
v1.c28.3
4th Aṅka or 3rd year=1436-37 A.D. 19th Aṅka or 16th year=1449-50 A.D. 25th Aṅka or 21st year=1454-55 A.D. 33rd Aṅka or 27th year=1460-61 A.D. 37th Aṅka or 30th year=1463-64 A.D. 41st Aṅka or 33rd year=1466-67 A.D.
v1.c28.4
Therefore, the 2nd Aṅka or 1st year=1434-35 A.D.
v1.c28.5
The correctness of Mr. Chakravarti’s calculation is proved by the Būrhan-i-Ma’aṣir which has recorded the year of Kapilendra’s death as A.H. 875=1470 A.D.¹ According to the Mādalā Pāñji the king’s accession took place at camp Kṛittivāsa or Bhuvaneśvara on Wednesday Kākaṛa, 2, Śu. 4, i.e., in the month of Śrāvaṇa. It is probable that from 1434-35 to 1452 or 1454 Kapilendra was engaged in suppressing the rebellion of the princes of the Eastern Gaṅga family and, therefore, the Puri record places his accession at a time when the rebellion of the last ambitious prince of the former line of kings had been crushed.
v1.c28.6
¹ Ind., Ant., Vol. XXVIII, 1899. p. 285.
v1.c28.7
During the last days of its existence the power and prestige of the Eastern Gaṅga dynasty had declined considerably. They were being hard pressed by the independent Sulṭāns of Bengal from the north and by the Bahmanī Sulṭāns from the south-west. The emperors of Vijayanagara had also conquered the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal as far as, at least, the mouth of Godāvarī. A clear instance is to be found in the list prepared by Sewell of the rulers of Koṇḍavīḍu. One Lāṅguliyā Gajapati was succeeded by the Reḍḍi king Rācha Veṅka (1420-31). Then came two sovereigns of Vijayanagara who are called Pratāpadeva (Devarāya II) and Harihara. They were succeeded by Kapileśvara of Orissa. This sequence clearly indicates that Koṇḍavīḍu had been conquered by the emperors of Vijayanagara from some of the later Eastern Gaṅga kings, but it was reconquered from them by the emperor Kapileśvara.¹ The date of the rise of Kapilendra coincides with the commencement of the decline of the Yādava or Voḍeyar dynasty of Vijayanagara. Kapilendra ascended the throne of Orissa during the lifetime of Devarāya II and continued to reign till its fall. The Sāḷuva usurpation and the declining power of the Bahmanī Sulṭāns favoured his widespread conquest of Southern India and the establishment of the prestige and power of the monarchy of Orissa. In 1464-65
v1.c28.8
¹ Sewell—A sketch of the dynasties of Southern India, p. 48 and note 3.
v1.c28.9.1
Kapilendra had succeeded in conquering the whole of the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal as far as the South Arcot district. Except Khāravela no other king of Kaliṅga or Orissa had succeeded in ruling over such a wide stretch of the eastern coastland. His occupation of the South Arcot district was not temporary, as it lasted for over ten years. Neither was it a mere raid, as two inscriptions discovered in the villages of Munnur and Jambai clearly indicate. A considerable amount of misunderstanding exists amongst scholars, especially those who hail from Southern India about the true nature of the conquest of Kapileśvara in the Tamil country. With the exception of these two inscriptions in the South Arcot district, Kapilendra is chiefly known to us from votive records discovered at Bhuvaneśvara, Jagannātha temples in the Puri district of Orissa, the temple of Śrīkurmam in the Ganjam district of Madras, and a charter of a feudatory named Gāṇadeva of Koṇḍavīḍu in the Telugu or Andhra country. We are not in a position to determine the exact chronology of events of the reign of Kapileśvara from these records, as most of them are votive inscriptions. We get some help from the *Tārīkh-i-Firiṣta* and the *Burhān-i-Ma’āṣir*, but these records are always unreliable where Hindu kingdoms are concerned. Kapilendra was the contemporary of Bahmanī Sulṭān’ Alāuddin Aḥmad II, who ascended the throne on the 21st February, 1435.
v1.c28.9.2
One of the earliest events mentioned in the *Burhān-i-Ma’āṣir* is the attempt on the part of the Bahmanī Sulṭān to conquer the uplands of the Telugu country. It is stated in this work that the leader of the Hindu chief of the highland of Telingana or that part of the Telugu-speaking country which lay above the ghats, was an Oriya. Kapileśvara is not mentioned by name but the statement in the Musalman history about the number of elephants possessed by this Oṛiyā chief proves that he was no ordinary chief but the great Gajapati king himself. This statement proves that soon after his accession Kapilendra was in possession of the Telugu country, not only the flat coastland between the foot of the Eastern Ghats and the Bay but also the greater portion of the eastern edge of the Deccan plateau, which the Musalmans had not yet succeeded in subduing. The Burhān-i-Ma'āṣir states that a chief named Sanjar Khān was engaged in the delightful pastime of raiding Hindu kingdoms and capturing non-combatants in order to sell them as slaves in Musalman kingdoms. Hearing this, the Bahmanī Sultan 'Alāuddin Aḥmad Shāh is stated to have said that it was dangerous to meddle with a man who possessed more than two hundred thousands war elephants, while he himself did not possess even two hundred. This is just the beginning of Kapilendra's activities outside Orissa proper, when he started to increase the original limits of the kingdom of the Gaṅgas to found an empire.
v1.c28.9.3
According to the same Musalman history, a rebel chief named Muḥammad Khān was appointed to govern the district of Rāyāchal.¹ Though Varaṅgal was occupied in 1423, the northern districts of Telingana both above and below the Ghats remained to be conquered. According to the Tārīkh-i-Firishta Humāyūn Shāh Bahmanī desired to consolidate the conquest of Varaṅgal or Eka-śilā-nagarī by subduing the outlying districts. Khwājah-i Jahān was sent with a large army to capture Devārkoṇḍa. The Telugu chief of that place appealed to Kapilendra for help who was possibly his suzerain. Kapilendra marched so swiftly to the relief of Devārkoṇḍa that he caught the Musalman army unwares. The besieged Hindus also sallied out and attacked the besiegers from the other side. Caught at a disadvantage between two armies, Khwājah-i-Jahān was compelled to seek safety in flight. According to *Firishta* this battle took place approximately in A. H. 864=1459 A. D. The Bahmanīs never again attempted to conquer any part of Telingana during the lifetime of Kapilendra and the Musalman historians had to invent plausible excuses for this disgraceful defeat of the Musalman army and the subsequent failure of Humāyūn Shāh Bahmanī to retrieve the prestige of Bahmanī arms. It is possible that on this occasion, or a little before that, Kapilendra wiped out the Reḍḍi kings of Koṇḍavīḍu and other places. This was the relation between the Bahmanī Sulṭāns and the newly founded empire of Orissa.
v1.c28.9.4
A Sanskrit drama named *Gaṅgādāsa-Pratāpa-Vilāsam* by Gaṅgādhara states that after the death of Devarāya II the Bahmanī Sulṭan combined with the Gajapati king and invaded Vijayanagara territories,¹ but were defeated by the Vijayanagara emperor Mallikārjuna. Both statements are unreliable, because, in the first instance, the relations of Kapilendra Gajapati were never cordial with Devarāya II and his death was hailed with great delight and relief by the Musalmans of the Deccan. Devarāya II died in February 1449 and the accession of his son Mallikārjuna took place in the same year. The war with the combined armies of Kapilendra and 'Alāuddīn Aḥmad II (1436-58) must have taken place in 1451. A war had indeed taken place, because the inscriptions of Kapilendra discovered in the South Arcot district prove that his occupation of the northern portion of the Tamil districts lasted for more than ten years.
v1.c28.9.5
It is impossible, for reasons mentioned above, that Kapilendra had allied himself with the Musalmans of the Bahmanī State and, in the second place, it is absolutely impossible to credit the dramatist Gaṅgādhara and believe that Mallikārjuna was successful in repelling the invasion, because the Jambai inscription in the South Arcot district states clearly that the repairs to the temple of Śiva had ceased for ten years before 1472-73.¹ Two inscriptions discovered at Muṇṇur in the South Arcot district prove that Kapileśvara had conquered the whole of the northern districts of the Tamil country as far as Tiruvarur in the Tanjore district and Trichinopoly. These two inscriptions are dated Śaka 1386=1464-65 A. D. The king mentioned is Kapileśvara or Kapilendra, but the form of the titles is queer : *Dakṣiṇa-Kapileśvara-Kumāra-Mahāpātra*. The inscription records the gift of some land for the *Ahamvīra-bhoga* and repairs to the temples of Perumal-Purushottama and Tirumala-ttanamudaiya Śiva in the village of Muṇṇur in the *Taluga* of the same name on Thursday of the bright half of Puṣyā of the Śaka year 1386=7th June 1464. A. D. This record proves that inspite of the queerness of the title Kapilendra was the master of the South Arcot district even towards the close of the reign of Mallikārjuna of Vijayanagara. A copy of the same inscription was found on the east and north walls of the deserted temple of Viṣṇu in the same village.
v1.c28.9.6
The first record is to be seen on the east wall of the central shrine in the Āḍavalleśvara temple.¹ Gaṅgādhara’s statement can, therefore, be rejected completely. The Munṇur inscriptions prove that even in 1464 Kapilendra was in possession of almost the entire eastern sea-board of the Vijayanagara empire. In his chapter of the Vijayanagara history Professor S. K. Ayyangar has once more repeated his previous statement and ignored the more reliable contemporary record.² Even that learned South Indian Epigraphist, the late Mr. H. Krishna Sastri, was compelled to admit that, “it establishes also that the earlier conquest by Gajapati was not a passing inroad only but almost an occupation of the southern country right upto Tiruvarur in the Tanjore district and Trichinopoly.³ Inscription No. 1 of 1905 clearly indicates that Kapilendra’s conquest of the South Arcot and Tanjore districts took place about 10 years before 1471, *i. e.*, sometime before 1461. These three records prove that the emperor Mallikārjuna of Vijayanagara, instead of succeeding in driving out Kapilendra, was so far humiliated as to consent tacitly to the cession of the eastern districts of the Vijayanagara Empire to Gajapati Kapilendradeva of Orissa. As Mallikārjuna ruled till 1467,⁴ no other construction can be put on the evidence of the inscriptions of Kapilendra discovered in the South Arcot district. These districts were never recovered by the emperors of the Yādava or Vodeyar dynasty.
v1.c28.9.7
After Kapilendra’s death, when the empire became divided, Sāḷuva-Narasiṁha succeeded in reconquering the country as far as the mouth of the Godāvarī.
v1.c28.10
¹ Ind., Ant., Vol. XXVIII, 1899, pp. 237-8.
v1.c28.11
¹ S. K. Ayyangar—*Sources of Vijayanagar a history*. University of Madras, 1919, p. 65.
v1.c28.12
¹ *Annual Report of the Assistant Archaeological Superintendent for Epigraphy for 1906-7. p. 84.*
v1.c28.13
¹ *Ibid.*, for the year 1918-19, pp. 51, 56 ; Nos. 51, 92.
v1.c28.14
² *Cambridge History of India*, Vol. III. p, 493.
v1.c28.15
³ *Annual Report of the Assistant Archæological Superintendent for Epigraphy, Southern Circle for 1919, p. 106.*
v1.c28.16
⁴ *Cambridge History of India. Vol. III. p. 493.*
v1.c28.17
Front facade of the Ganeshgumpha—Udaygiri, Puri District
v1.c28.18
The Bahmanī Sulṭān Humāyūn Shāh died in 1461 and both *Firishta* and the *Burhān-i-Ma’āṣir* agree in stating that the king of Orissa invaded the Bahmanī empire and almost reached the gates of the capital Bidar. The details of the campaign are not given and perhaps this is the only instance in which the Indian Musalman historian was compelled to admit the defeat of a king of his own community. From the tone of *Firishta* it appears certain that the Bahmanī army, unable to cope with Kapilendra in the open field, had to take refuge within the strong walls of the citadel. In this connection the learned editor of the third volume of the Cambridge History of India, failing to recognise the fact that Orissa from Medinipur to Trichinopoly was under one rule, states that the Rajah of Southern Orissā was compelled to pay half a million of silver *Tangas* in order to secure his retreat from molestation.¹ Sir T. W. Haig apparently wrote unconscious of the existence of the South Arcot inscription and, therefore, his statements are not worthy of credit like those of Professor S. K. Ayyangar. The only established fact is, that Kapilendra, allied with the Kākatīya chief of Varaṅgal, advanced within a short distance of the capital. Most probably the Hindu army had to be purchased off. The statement of the payment of twenty lakhs of *Tangas* as ransom for Kapilendra’s army is untrustworthy. After Orissa in the reign of Kapilendra Deva the battle of Devārkoṇḍa, Kapilendra had succeeded in stopping Musalman raids into the Hindu kingdoms on the east of the Bahmanī empire. Immediately after the death of Humāyun Shāh Bahmanī, he had made himself conspicuous by delivering a well-chosen blow at the trunk of Musalman power in the Deccan by invading the metropolitan district of Bidar. In the Muṇṇur inscription it is stated that Kapileśvara ‘Kumāra-Mahāpātra’ was formerly the Parīksha (governor) of Koṇḍavīḍu, but at the time of the incision of the record he was the Parīksha of Koṇḍavīḍu, Koṇḍapalle, Aḍḍaṅki, Vinukoṇḍa, Paḍaīvīḍu, Valuḍilampaṭṭu-Usadabi, Tiruvarur, Tiruchchilapalle (Trichinipoly) and Chandragiri. Among these places the Muṇṇur inscriptions mention Koṇḍavīḍu and Vinukoṇḍa as Daṇḍapāṭas or seats of Oṛiyā governors. As both Penukoṇḍa and Chandragiri were in the occupation of Kapileśvara, it seems more probable that this Vinukoṇḍa is meant to be the southern Penukoṇḍa and not Vinukoṇḍa in the Telugu country. This would give us two distinct Viceroyalities for the country along the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal : Koṇḍavīḍu to the south of the Kṛshṇā in the Kṛshṇā district, and Penukoṇḍa in the interior, to the south west of Koṇḍavīḍu in the Anantapur district of the Madras Presidency.
v1.c28.19
¹ Cambridge History of India. Vol. III. p. 412.
v1.c28.20
ORISSA IN THE REIGN OF KAPILENDRA DEVA
v1.c28.21
In the Śaka year 1376=Friday 12th April 1434 A. D., one Gāṇadeva, with the titles of Mahāpātra and Rautaṛāya was the Viceroy of Koṇḍavīḍu. In an inscription discovered on a Hanuman pillar, set up near the new temple at Chintapāllipāḍu in the Guntur tāluga in the Guntur district, an inscription of this Gāṇadeva mentions the temple of Rāghaveśvara and the towns of Aḍḍaṅki, Vinukoṇḍa and Koṇḍaviḍu.¹ Gāṇadeva is better known to us from a land grant discovered in the Kṛṣṇā district. In the inscription on these plates Kapilendra Gajapati is surnamed Kumbhīrāja and stated to have belonged to the Surya-vaṃśa. He was a worshipper of Jagannātha on the seacoast and his capital was at Kaṭaka on the Mahānadī. Under him the Rāutarāya was Viceroy of Koṇḍaviḍu. Gāṇadeva was a relative of the king. His father was Guhideva and his grandfather Chandradeva. Gāṇadeva is styled Rāutarāya, a title now applied to the third son of Royalty in Orissa, the eldest being called Tikāyat and the second Chhoṭarāya.² The charter records the grant of the village of Chavali in the Repalle tāluga of the Kṛṣṇā district on the occasion of a lunar eclipse to a number of Brāhamaṇas, belonging to different gotras but of the Yajur-veda, in the month of Bhādrapada of the Śaka year 1377=3rd September 1477. A. D.³ The inscription on the Kṛṣṇa plates prove that in the 15th century a distant relation of king could also be styled Rāutarāya. Verse 9 of this record states that Gāṇadeva defeated two Turushka kings. One of these no doubt is the Bahmanī Sulṭān'Alāuddin Ahmad Shāh II, but the second Musalman king cannot be identified at present, unless we take it for granted that Gāṇadeva served under Kapilendra in his wars against the Sulṭāns of Bengal. He was the contemporary of Shamsuddīn Aḥmad Shāh, the grandson of the Hindu Rājah Gaṇeśa of Gaur and Nāṣiruddīn Maḥmud Shāh II of the Second Iliyās-Shāhī dynasty of Bengal before the date of the Kṛṣṇa plates. The sixth known inscription of Kapilendra was discovered on the eastern gate of a temple of Jagannātha at Gopinathpur, a village 13 miles south-east of Katak. This temple of Jagannātha was built by Gopīnātha Mahāpātra of the Hārīta gotra, the younger son of Lakshmaṇa Mahāpātra, who was the priest of Kapilendra. Gopīnātha’s elder brother, Nārāyaṇa, was also a minister (mantrī) of the same king. Lakshmaṇa, the father of Gopīnātha, is also mentioned in another inscription discovered at Bhuvaneśvara.¹ In this record Kapilendra is mentioned as being born of the Solar race. He is called the conqueror of the lion of Karṇāṭa, the conqueror of Gulbarga, the destroyer of Mālava and Delhi, and one who crushed Bengal (Gauḍa). By Karṇāṭa the poet refers to the now well-known conquest of Kapilendra in the eastern districts of the empire of Vijayanagara. The reference to Kalavarga or Gulvarga is to the wars against the Bahmanīs of Bidar, whose ancient capital was Gulbarga. The reference to the Sulṭāns of Mālwa and Delhī cannot be understood. Kapilendra was the contemporary of Sulṭān ‘Alāuddin ‘Alam Shāh of the Saiyad dynasty, Bahlol Lodī of the Lodī dynasty of Delhī, of Sulṭāns Alāuddīn Aḥmad II, Humāyūn, Niẓām and Muḥammad III Bahmanī, of Aḥmad I, Muḥammed I, Quṭbuddīn, Dāūd and Maḥmud I Bigarah of Gujarat and Maḥmud I and Ghiyāṣuddīn Khaljī of Mālwa.
v1.c28.22
¹ Annual Report of the Assistant Archaeological Superintendent for Epigraphy, Southern Circle, for the year 1917, p. 77 No. 70, 97, 133.
v1.c28.23
² Twenty-five questions addressed to the Rajahs and Chiefs of the Regulation and Tributary Mahals by the Superintendent in 1814, : Calcutta, Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, reprinted, 1905, p. 5.
v1.c28.24
³ Ind. Ant. Vol. XX, 1891, pp. 390-93.
v1.c28.25
¹ Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. LXII, 1893, pp. 91-92
v1.c28.26
Of the records of Kapilendra discovered in Orissa proper some were found on the right hand side of the temple of Jagannātha at Puri. These records have now been hidden by plaster. A record on the left side was incised in the fourth Aṅka, i. e., 3rd year=9th December 1436 (old style). The record informs us that while at camp Purushottama or Puri he came to worship the god Jagannātha and ordered an exemption of the tax on salt and cowrie shells in the presence of Mahāpātras Kakāi Sāntarā, Jalāsara Sena Narendra, Gopīnātha Maṅgarāja, Kasi Vidyādhara, Belaśvara Praharāja, Lakhaṇa Paṇḍita and the general Dāmodara Paṭṭanāyaka. The order of exemption was written by Pātra Agniśarman, the examiner of Bhogas. The second record was incised at the same place in the 41st Aṅka=14th December 1466 (o. s.) and records that on that date Kapilendra came to worship Jagannātha and gave a number of utensils and ornaments. A supply of gold was brought by a number of officers and placed with other offerings in the audience hall. Mr. Chakravarti noted in 1893 that many of the ornaments given to the god Jagannātha in 1466 are still in use. The third record of Kapilendra in the temple of Jagannātha was incised two years earlier in the 35th Aṅka 25th=April 1464. It records a pious wish on the part of the king and cannot be fully understood on account of damage. Mr. Chakravarti informs us in a note that the zamindars of Kuṇḍajori rebelled in the 35th Aṅka according to the Mādalā Pāñji and was helped by many of Kapilendra’s officers. The last record of Kapilendra at Puri is the second in point of date, having been incised on the 19th Aṅka=Sunday 12th April 1450 (o. s). It records an order for the performances of dances The page is blank.
v1.c28.27
View of the corridor—Ganeshgumpha—Udaygiri, Puri District
v1.c28.28
at the time of Bhoga from the end of evening Dhūpa up to the time of Baṛasingār (bed time). It refers to a number of dancers from Telingana and that besides dancing, four Vaishṇava singers will sing Jayadeva’s *Gita-Govinda*. A record on the right side was incised on the 19th *Aṅka* and records that Kapilendra having conquered “the side of Mallikā Pārisā,” meaning perhaps the Sulṭān of Gaur or Mālik Padshāh, on his return, gave to Jagannātha one *sāṭī* known as Puṇḍarikagopa. Another inscription below this one was incised in the 31st *Aṅka*=12th July 1459 (o. s.) and records that the king held court in the audience hall of the southern block of rooms and registered a vow to bestow all precious things possessed by the king on Brāhmaṇas.¹ The particular gateway of the *Jagamohana*, on the sides of which these records were to be found up to 1910, is called Jaya-Vijaya. Only one inscription of Kapilendra has been discovered in the outer door of the *Jagamohana* of the temple of Kṛittivāsa or Liṅgārāja at Bhuvaneśvara. It records an order passed on the 9th *Aṅka*=7th year and addressed by king Kapilendra to his feudatories in the presence of the Royal spiritual preceptors Bāsu *Mahāpātra* and Bhuvaneśvara *Mahāpātra*. It runs thus. “All kings in my kingdom of Orissa should work for the good of the paramount sovereign and should keep to virtuous ways and not remain in bad ways. If they act badly towards their sovereign, they will be expelled from the kingdom and all their property confiscated.”² The Jagannātha inscription of the 35th *Aṅka* and the Bhuvaneś- vara inscription of the 4th Aṅka are by nature proclamations to the people. No other stone inscription in Orissa is of the same purport. These inscriptions give a number of titles to Kapilendra which are new in Orissa, namely, Gajapati, Gauḍeśvara, and Nava-koṭi-Karṇāṭa-Kalavarageśvara. The title Gajapati has been used to denote kings of Orissa for a very long time but no other Hindu king of Orissa, not even Narasimha I who had beseiged the city of Gauḍa, had dared to assume the title Gauḍeśvara. It may refer to the conquest of a part of Bengal by Kapilendra and perhaps the reference to Mālikā Pārisā, whose conquest is recorded in the Jagannātha inscription of the 19th Aṅka, is to some officer of the independent Sulṭāns of Bengal. After the fall of Shamsuddin Aḥmad Shāh, the grandson of Rajah Gaṇeśa of Gauḍa, the Musalmans of Bengal under the leadership of Sulṭān Nāṣirudīn Maḥmud Shāh of Bengal reconquered south-western Bengal. The campaign against Mālikā Pārisā took place before the 19th Aṅka of Kapilendra, the 15th year of his reign=1449-50 A. D., and therefore fell within the reign of that Sulṭān (1442-59 A. D.) Kapilendra certainly possessed the right to call himself the master of ninety millions of people of Karṇāṭa, as he had conquered the eastern coast as far as Tanjore and Trichinopoly. But it is doubtful whether he had ever captured or invaded Gulbarga, the ancient capital of the Bahmanīs. But there is nothing improbable in it for a king who had approached within twenty miles of the new capital, Bidar. Kapilendra died, according to local tradition as recorded in the Mādalā Pāñji on the banks of the river Kṛṣṇā on Pausha Kṛṣṇa, 3, Tuesday, a date which cannot be verified. The traditional date of the death of Kapilendra as recorded by Stirling¹ and second-rate compilers like W. W. Hunter are incorrect. As the 2nd Aṅka of his son and successor Purushottama fell in April 1470, Kapilendra must have died before that date. His latest known date is his 41st Aṅka or 33rd year=Sunday 14th December 1466 A.D. The calculations of late Mr. Monmohan Chakravarti² are corroborated by the Burhān-i-Ma’āṣir which states :
v1.c28.29
¹ Journal of the *Asiatic Society of Bengal*, Vol. LXII, 1893, Part I pp. 92-100.
v1.c28.30
² *Ibid.*, pp. 103-4.
v1.c28.31
¹ *Asiatic Researches*, Vol. XV, p. 279. 2 *Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal*, Vol. LXIX, 1900, part I, p. 182. 3 *Ind., Ant.*, Vol, XXVIII, p. 285. 4 *Asiatic Researches*, Vol., XV, pp. 275-76.
v1.c28.32
“In this year the Queen-Mother, Makhdūmāh Jahān, died, and in A. H. 875 (A. D., 1470) the Sulṭān assumed the reins of government.
v1.c28.33
“In the midst of these affairs a messenger arrived from Telingana and informed the Sulṭān that the Raya of Orissa, who was the principal raya of Telingana, was dead.”³
v1.c28.34
Mr. Chakravarti states that Kapilendra ascended the throne with the help of the Bahmanī Sulṭān Aḥmad Shāh I on the authority of the Mādalā Pāñji, but Stirling states that he was adopted by the last Gaṅga king Bhānudeva IV, who was childless.⁴ Whatever be the truth, there cannot be any doubt about the fact that Kapilendra or Kapileśvara, the founder of the Sūryā Vaṁśa dynasty, was a man of very exceptional abilities. He assumed the crown and succeeded in maintaining his position in the midst of strong opposition, a distinct hint about which is recorded in the Jagannātha temple inscription of the 31st Aṅka=12th July 1459 A.D. After fighting long wars with the Bahmanīs of Bidar and Voḍeyars of Vijayanagara, he was faced with powerful rebels in his own country in his 35th Aṅka or 1464 A. D. Inspite of these troubles he succeeded in conquering the entire eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal from Hughly in Bengal to Trichinopoly in Madras. According to the Gopīnathpur inscription, he possessed Udayagiri, the seat of a Vijayanagara Viceroyalty, in the Nellore district of Madras and Conjeeveram in the Chingleput district. This vast empire broke up shortly after his death, partly on account of the rise of Sāḷuva Narasiṁha in Vijayanagara and, if Musalman historians are to be believed, partly on account of a war of succession in Orissa. To Kapilendra ought to be ascribed the issue of the Gajapati Pagoda, with the fine arabesque on the reverse.¹
v1.c28.35
¹ V. A. Smith, Catalogue of Coins in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, Vol. XXX, I, p. 318, No. 18.
Linked texts (7)
- Gītagovinda — Jayadeva, Sanskrit
- Penukonda
- Chandragiri
- Addanki
- Kondapalli
- Padavedu
- Mādaḷā Pāñji — Professional employees of the state and the Temple, Odia