The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c11.s8.81

v1.c11.s8.81

Sovideva was succeeded by his younger brother Saṅkama, known as Niśśaṅkamalla, 'the wrestler free from apprehension'. He may have been associated with Sovideva on the throne from 1176 onwards, but his reign actually bears dates between 1177 and 1180. The records give him the same paramount epithets as they do to Sovideva, and one of them is full of conventional laudatory phrases,¹ coupled with the statement that the king visited the temple of Dakshina Kedāreśvara in 1179 in the course of a tour of the south which he made by way of recreation, accompanied by his ministers and generals. Among the feudatories named in the inscriptions attributed to this reign are Daṇḍanāyaka Kāvaṇa or Kāvaṇayya, described as ‘the upraiser of the sovereignty of the Kalachuris’ and the Hoysaḷa Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Vīra Ballāḷa II, who, in A.D. 1179, joined with his piriya-arasi (senior wife) Remādevi in making a grant to the god Harihareśvara at Kaulūr in the Hyderabad State.² Kāvaṇayya and Vīra Ballāḷa are mentioned in many other records, of which two are sufficiently noteworthy for mention: Vīra Ballāḷa is seen assuming imperial titles and matching his strength in battle with the Kalachuri forces when Saṅkama invaded the country on the West Coast (kaḍalśīme); whilst Kāvaṇayya is invested with the title Hoysaṇa-diśāpaṭṭa (displacer of the Hoysaṇa) in a record of 1180;³ however, it becomes evident from inscriptions of a later date in which he acknowledges Saṅkama’s suzerainty⁴ that the Hoysaḷa did not in fact come off victor in this encounter. Kāvaṇayya is also said to have uprooted the Velaṇāḍu Cōḍas from their habitations and frightened the Koṅkaṇas (Śilāhāras), but no exact details are forthcoming.