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The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c6.s8.t1: Some Royal Seats of the Post-Sātavāhana Period

The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c6.s8.t1

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Some Royal Seats of the Post-Sātavāhana Period

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Having attempted a survey of the inland cities and market-towns known to foreign writers of the early centuries of the Christian era and, in one case, to Marco Polo, we now proceed to give an account of some of the more important cities that served as capitals of the dynasties that flourished after the Sātavāhanas, including their environs. In the eastern Deccan Vijayapurī or Vijayapura, mentioned in inscriptions discovered at Nāgārjunakoṇḍa and Amarāvatī, seems to have occupied an important position under the Ikshvākus. Vijaya-kandarapura seems to have been the chief city of the kings of the Ānandagotra, Veṅgīpura that of the Śālaṅkāyanas, and Leṇḍulūra of some of the Vishṇukuṇḍin kings. The last-mentioned city has been identified with Deṇḍulūru near Ellore, only five miles to the south-east of Pedda-vegi, the modern representative of Veṅgīpura. From the fourth century A.D. another city, Piṣṭapura or Pīṭhāpuram in the East Godāvarī District, occupied an important position. It had to face the onslaught of conquerors from the Ganges valley and the western Deccan in the fourth and seventh centuries A.D. In the seventh century it became the seat of a Chālukya principality. The seat of government was removed, in the eleventh century, to Rājamahendrapattana or Jananāthapura, modern Rājmundry. Another important city, Vijayavāḍa, Vijayavāṭa, Vijayavāṭikā, modern Bezwāḍa, seems to have risen to great importance from the ninth century A.D. onwards. Its antiquity would be carried much farther back if future discoveries should prove its identity with the Vijayapura of an early Amarāvatī inscription.

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Coming to the western Deccan we find reference in Kadamba records not only to Vaijayantī, which has already been frequently mentioned above, but also to Palāśikā or Halsi in the Belgaum District, Triparvata (identified with Devagiri or with Trigiri or Tegur in the Dhārwār District, and by some with Murgoḍ in the Belgaum District), and Uchchhaśṛṅgī (either in the Chitaldroog or in the Bellāry District). Kadambas of a later age had for their chief cities Pānumgal or Hāngal in the Dhārwār District and Gopakapurī, Gopakapurī, or Gove, modern Goa. A city named Purī appears as the ‘queen of the Western ocean’ and the chief city of northern Koṅkaṇ from the time of the early Chālukyas to that of the Śilāhāras (seventh to the eleventh or twelfth century A.D.). Its exact identity is uncertain. It is, however, important to remember that Alberunī (A.D. 1030) referred to ‘Tāṇa’ as the capital of the province of ‘Kunkan’. It is perhaps not unreasonable to surmise that we have to look for Purī, the capital of the ‘fourteen hundred’ province of Koṅkaṇ, at or near modern Ṭhāṇa in the island of Salsette.

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None of the cities named above had the honour of being the capitals of the great empires that stretched, after the passing away of the Sātavāhanas, over nearly the whole of the Deccan plateau and considerable portions of the coastal strips beyond the Ghāṭs. The first of these cities which claims that distinction is Vātāpi. Vātāpi is represented by the modern Bādāmi, sixty-five miles south of Bijāpur. The famous metropolis lay picturesquely at the mouth of a ravine between two rocky hills on its north and south. About three miles from the city flowed the Malaprabhā (‘mud-shining’), Malāpahāri (‘mud-robbing’) or Malaprahārini (‘mud-shooting’), which falls into the Krishnā at Kapila-saṅgama. Among the hills to the east is Mahākūṭa. Eight miles to the north-east and on the river Malaprabhā stands Paṭṭadakal, also known as Paṭṭada-Kisuvoḷal and Dakshiṇa-Vārāṇasi, the centre of the district known as the Kisukāḍ seventy. Paṭṭadakal has the sense of ‘the anointing or coronation stone’. Kisuvoḷal means ‘ruby’ city or city ‘having the colour of copper’.

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Eight miles farther down the river Malaprabhā stood Ayyāvoḷe, ‘priests’ holy village’, Āryapura in Sanskrit, also styled Ahichchhatra, modern Aihole in the Hungund tāluk of the Bijāpur District. A place in the neighbourhood is Arasibiḍi, ‘Queen’s Route’, or Vikramapura, one of the minor capitals of the great Vikramāditya VI, only eight miles south-south-east from Aihole. Popular traditions about Vātāpi and Aihole (Ayyāvoḷe) probably find an echo in the story of Vātāpi and Ilvala, two demon-brothers of the Daṇḍaka forest, who played tricks upon several sages, and were finally reputed to have been destroyed by the sage Agastya.

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The Rāshṭrakūṭa dynasty that succeeded the Chālukyas of Vātāpi had its ancestral seat probably at Lattalūr or Latūr in the Osmānābād¹ District, twenty-eight miles east by north from Ter, ancient Tagara. But the capital from the time of Amoghavarsha I was at Mānyakheṭa, the Mankir of al-Mas‘ūdī, now represented by Mālkheḍ in the Seram tāluk of the Gulbarga District, about ninety miles in a south-easterly direction from Sholāpur, and about eighty-five miles west by south from Hyderabad. The identification was first suggested by Wathen and Wilson, and afterwards confirmed by Bühler and Fleet. The distance from the west coast as the crow flies is about 350 miles. The city contains an old fort on the river Kāgini or Kāgnā also called the Tāndūr river, a tributary of the Bhīmā.

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¹ Osmānābād town is close to the site of the old city, Dhārāsiṃha, thirty miles north by west of Naldurg.

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The city was either founded by Amoghavarsha I, or else developed and completed by him as the capital. It survived the fall of the Rāshṭrakūṭa dynasty, and was occasionally graced by the presence of the sovereign even in the post-Rāshṭrakūṭa period. A Mysore inscription of A.D. 902 marks it as the headquarters of the ‘Mānyakheṭa six thousand’ province.² The various forms of its name are Mānyakheṭa, Mānyakheḍa, Mannakheḍa, Mannekheḍa, Mankir, and Malquer.

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² JRAS, 1912, 709; Ep. Ind., xiii, 179.

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Forty-eight miles north-eastwards from Mālkheḍ stands Kalyāṇi (ancient Kalyāṇa, to be carefully distinguished from the city of the same name in Ṭhāṇa), which supplanted Mānyakheṭa as the metropolis of the Deccan empire in the eleventh century A.D. Bilhaṇa tells us in his Vikramāṅkadeva-charita that the city was either founded or adapted as his capital by Someśvara I, father of his hero Vikramāditya VI. The place, however, finds mention as the capital in a record of A.D. 1033-4, which falls within the reign of Jayasiṃha II, father of Someśvara. It was until recently a *jāgīr* town in the Gulbarga District. Like Mālkheḍ it has a fortress which was invested by the emperor Aurangzeb in A.D. 1656. Bidar, the town which gives its name to the district of which Kalyāṇa is now a part, seems to be referred to in the Telugu poem *Pārijātāpaharaṇam* as Beḍandakoṭa.

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Besides the chief imperial cities the sovereigns of the Deccan had a number of minor seats of power or temporary places of residence. The word for the capital city was *rājadhānī*. We also frequently come across the term *nelevīḍu* which literally means a 'fixed camp', and is sometimes rendered by the Sanskrit *sthira-śivira*. But, as Fleet points out, it is also coupled with the word *rājadhānī*, which means a permanent capital rather than a temporary residence. A record of A.D. 1053 speaks of Kalyāṇa as the *nelevīḍu* of Someśvara I. The exigencies of war, or the needs of efficient administration, sometimes required the presence of the sovereign in other cities. The evidence of Yuan Chwang suggests that in the early Chālukya period the king had a residence at Nāsik. Vijayāditya had a camp at Rāsena-nagara, identified with modern Rāśin in the Ahmadnagar District. It was probably the headquarters of a district or *tāluk* in the Rāṣṭrakūṭa age. Vikramāditya II resided for a time at Raktapura, modern Lakshmeshwar in the Miraj State, Dhārwār. Kirtivarman II once pitched his camp at Bhaṇḍāragavittaṇge on the north bank of the Bhīmā. Govinda III resided at one time outside Pratiṣṭhāna. He is also known to have encamped at the Rāmeśvara-tīrtha on the Tuṅgabhadrā, at Mayūrakhaṇḍi, possibly Morkhaṇḍ in the district of Nāsik, or Morkhaṇḍ in the Sātmāla Range, and at Śribhavana, identified by some with modern Sarbhon in Broach District. The *paṭṭabandhotsava* or coronation-festival of Indra III was performed at Kurundaka which has been identified with Kaḍodā on the Tapti, or Kurundwād in Kolhāpur State. The Chālukya emperor Iriva-beḍaṅga Satyāśraya 'reigned over the whole earth at Tāvareyaghaṭṭa or the mountain pass of Tāvare¹ or Tovare' in A.D. 1007-8. Jayasiṃha II had minor capitals at Baḷagāṃve or Baḷagāmi, also called Balipura or Dakṣiṇa-Kedāra, in the Shikārpur *tāluk* of the Shimoga District, at Poṭṭalakere in the Bellāry District, and at Koḷḷipāke, modern Kulpak, about forty-five miles north-east of Hyderabad.² His grandson, the great Vikramāditya VI, had residences at Naḍaviyuppayaṇa-vīḍu, in the direction of Waḍāgeri, near the frontier between Bijāpur and the Hyderabad State; Etagiri, also in the Hyderabad State, thirty miles south of Mālkheḍ; Vijayapura, modern Bijāpur; Manneyakere (Mālkheḍ?); and Vikramapura or Arasībīḍi in the Bijāpur District. Someśvara IV for a time established himself at Aṇṇigere in the Dhārwār District.

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¹ There is a place called Tāvarekere in Hospet *tāluk*, Bangalore.

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² Kulpak is 4 miles to the north-east of Aler, a railway station on the N.S. Railway. For the antiquities of Kulpak see *Journal of Hyd. Arch. Soc.*, 1916, pp. 14-36.

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The empire of Kalyāṇa fell to pieces towards the close of the twelfth century A.D. Of the kingdoms that rose on its ruins the most powerful had their capitals at Dorasamudra, Devagiri, and Hanamkoṇḍa-Waraṅgal. Of these Dorasamudra, modern Haḷebīḍ, in Mysore, lay far to the south of the Kṛṣṇā-Tuṅgabhadrā frontier of our Deccan. Devagiri was founded by Bhillama, the famous Yādava king, in A.D. 1187. It was situated in Seuṇa-deśa ‘on the beautiful confines of Daṇḍakāraṇya’ (maṇḍita Daṇḍakāparisara), and is represented by the modern Daulatābād, a famous hill-fort in the Aurangābād District of the Hyderabad State. The fortress rises on a conical rock, scarped from a height of 150 ft. from the base. Among famous buildings, besides the fortifications, are Mubārak Khaljī’s Mosque, the Chānd Minār, and the Chīnī Maḥall. The ancient city of Devagiri was formerly enclosed by an outer wall.

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Before the foundation of Devagiri the Yādava or ‘Seuṇa’ kings had seats at Chandrādityapura, possibly modern Chāndor in the Nāsik District, Seuṇapura, and Sindinera, the modern Sinnar, in the same district.

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Hanamkoṇḍa or Anmakoṇḍa is a short distance to the north of Waraṅgal, and may be regarded as one of its suburbs. It was the capital of the Kākatīya kings before the removal of the seat of government to Waraṅgal about the end of the reign of Ganapati. The district around it was known as Sabbisāyira, ‘the Sabbi one thousand’ which formed part of the empire of Kalyāṇi. The territory seems also to have been known as Anmakoṇḍa-vishaya. In the neighbourhood of the city tradition located the Hiḍimbāśrama or Hiḍimbālaya. The Sanskrit name of the capital is said to have been Hanumadachala or the Hill of Hanumat (Hanumān), the famous follower of the hero of the Rāmāyaṇa. The most conspicuous feature of Anmakoṇḍa is the ‘thousand-pillared’ temple built by king Rudra in or about A.D. 1163.

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Waraṅgal, which replaced Anmakoṇḍa as the metropolis towards the close of the reign of Ganapati (c. 1199–1260), is a corrupt way of writing Orukkal, which means ‘one rock’. It is translated in Sanskrit texts by Ekaśaila, and is the original from which the name ‘Ekaśilānagara’ is derived. The Telugu form of the name is Orumgallu. It is identified by some scholars with the Korounkala of Ptolemy. The city occupied a subordinate position in the time of Ganapati’s predecessors, but is said to have been embellished by Rudra I. It was provided with a stone wall by Rudra’s nephew and successor Ganapati, who removed the seat of government to it toward the close of his reign. The fortifications were completed by his daughter and successor Rudrāmbādevī. The city had to face successive onslaughts in the fourteenth century A.D. Muḥammad bin Tughluq took it in 1323, and renamed it Sulṭānpur. The total eclipse of the city in the Bahmanid period was followed by the rising glory of Golconda and Hyderabad, the famous seats of the Quṭb Shāhī kings and the House of Aṣaf Jāh.

Cites (21)