Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c8.s15: 15. Sēuṇas
Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c8.s15
- Language
- English
15. Sēuṇas
c8.s15.1
The Sēunas (also called Yādavas of Dēvagiri), who were the great rivals of the Hoysalas in contending for the possession of the Western Chālukya and Kalachurya dominions, claim descent from Krishna through Subāhu, a universal monarch, who divided his empire between his four sons. The second son, Driḍhaprahāra, obtained the south, and his descendants ruled over the Sēuna country, in Central India, probably corresponding in great part with the modern Khāndēsh. He was succeeded by twenty-two kings of his line down to Bhillama, who was the contemporary of the Hoysala king Ballāla II, and from whose time alone the history of Mysore is concerned with the dynasty. Their inscriptions are confined to the north of the Shimoga District and the Dāvangere tāluq, and range in date from 1212 to 1300. They had titles such as Yādava-Nārāyaṇa, bhujabala-pratāpa-chakravartti, etc., which were appropriated by the Hoysalas on the latter defeating them. Their standard bore the device of a golden garuḍa. Having overcome the Kalachuryas, they became masters of all the western Dekhan, with their capital at Dēvagiri, now known as Daulatabad. Their destruction was due to the same Musalmān invasions from Delhi that brought the Hoysala power to an end. The following is a table of the kings :—
c8.s15.2
MAHADEVA
c8.s15.3
1. Bhillama, 1187-1191
c8.s15.4
2. Jaitugi, Jaitrapāla, 1191-1210
c8.s15.5
3. Singhana, 1210-1247
c8.s15.6
Jaituga
c8.s15.7
4. Kandhara, Kanhara, Krishna, 5. Mahadēva, 1260-1271
c8.s15.8
6. Rāmachandra, Rāma-Dēva,
c8.s15.9
7. Sankara-Dēva, 1309-1312
c8.s15.10
The immense army of Bhillama was totally routed by Ballāla II at Soraṭūr, as previously related, and slaughtered all the way to the Krishnā river. Jaitugi is also mentioned as defeated by him. Singhana took advantage of Ballāla’s death to seize some part of Mysore in the extreme north-west. According to Sb 319 an army of 30,000 horse sent by him captured the hill fort of Gutti (that is, Chandragutti) in 1239. His attempts to collect the local revenue, however, seem to have been resisted by force (Sb 425, 217), and about the same time battles were fought against his army by the Sindas at Nēmatti (Hl 54, 55). The Sēuna kings, among other epithets, are generally described as destroyers of Mālava-Rāya, terrifiers of the Gurjjara Rāya, and establishers of Telunga-Rāya. The Hoysala king Sōmēśvara, as we have seen above, is said to have fought against Krishna-Kandhara. But in Mahadēva’s time the Sēuna general Sāluva-Tikkama claims to have won important victories over the Hoysalas, in connection with which, apparently, he made some additions to the temple of Harihara, which the king had himself visited, and where he remitted all the taxes of the agrahāra (Dg 59). But Hg 39 says, on the other hand, that Mahadēva fled in a single night. In the time of Rāma-Dēva the seat of the Sēuna government in Mysore was fixed at Bettūr, close to Dāvangere on the east. But in 1276 an invasion of Dōrasamudra by Sāluva-Tikkama was entirely defeated at the battle of Belavāḍi, as related in Bl 164, 165. The Musalmān invasions from Delhi began in the reign of Rāma-Dēva and before long extinguished the Sēuna power. Finally, in 1338, Muhammad Tughlak removed the capital of his empire from Delhi to Dēvagiri, giving it the name of Daulatābād.