A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c14.67

c14.67

In Vengi, from about the end of the reign of Rājarāja II, the Chodas of Velanādu declared their independence. They were followed by the Nellore branch of the Telugu-Chodas which began with Bēta, a feudatory of Vikrama Chola. There is no evidence of the rule of Rājādhirāja II in Nellore or the Northern Circars. But there was a recovery under Kulottunga III whose sway was acknowledged by the Telugu-Choda rulers, Nallasiddha and his brother Tammu Siddha, from 1187 to the end of Kulottunga's reign. There was, however, an interlude during which Nallasiddha occupied Kānchi in 1192-3 and was driven out of the city by Kulottunga III in 1196. The Telugu-Chodas made another a more successful bid for independence towards the close of Kulottunga's reign when he was hard pressed by a Pāndya invasion of the Chola country, as we shall see in the following chapter. Kulottunga waged war once again in the north in 1208 when he claims to have subdued Vengi and entered the Kākatīya capital, Warangal, perhaps an exaggeration because the Kākatīya kingdom was ruled at the time by the powerful monarch Ganapati.