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The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c14.s1: The Independent Sovereigns

The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c14.s1

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Contents

The Independent Sovereigns

Bhillama V

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BHILLAMA V was the first Yādava ruler to claim imperial status and assume the imperial titles. This he did in about A.D. 1187, just four years before his death, at which time he also initiated a new reckoning of his regnal years. But his career had really begun at least a decade earlier.¹ In order properly to understand the significance of his reign, it is essential first to take a bird's-eye view of the political condition of the Deccan during the period.

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¹ The year A.D. 1184 which is given as the initial year of his reign by some records (e.g. ASR, 1930-4, p. 244) may be the year when he succeeded in making himself the complete master of the possessions of the main branch of the family.

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The Chālukyan power began to decline from about A.D. 1150. Tailapa III, who had then just ascended the imperial throne, proved unable to prevent the gradual usurpation of his power by his Kalachuri feudatory Bijjala. He was in fact a very weak ruler; even a much inferior vassal like the Kākatīya Proḷa had actually taken him prisoner on the battlefield. No wonder then that a masterful personality like Bijjala was easily able to win an independent status for his family against such feeble opposition. We find him claiming imperial titles in A.D. 1162, immediately after the death of his nominal sovereign Taila III, though in fact he had begun his own regnal reckoning six years earlier.

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Empires in Ancient India were generally not unitary states. They usually consisted of a loose federation of a number of feudal states, each of which was, as a rule, individually anxious to throw off the imperial yoke at the earliest convenient opportunity. This was the form of the Chālukyan empire. There were a number of feudatories under Taila III, like the Kākatīyas of Warangal, the Hoysaḷas of Dvārāsamudra, the Raṭṭas of Saundatti, the Śilāhāras of Konkan and the Yādavas of northern Mahārāshtra; these were not at all over-anxious to recognize the imperial claims of Bijjala. The latter on his part failed to consolidate his power and was assassinated in A.D. 1167. He was succeeded by his sons Soyideva, Saṅkama, Āhavamalla, and Siṃhaṇa in rapid succession; none of these showed any ability as a ruler. The Kalachūris were supplanted by Someśvara IV, a son of Tailapa III, about A.D. 1183.

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While these political revolutions were succeeding each other with lightning speed in the heart of the Chālukyan empire, its outlying feudatories like the Yādavas and the Hoysaḷas, who naturally could not be effectively controlled from the centre, were maturing their own imperial plans. The Hoysaḷas had once before become almost independent in the reign of Viṣṇuvardhana, but were eventually curbed by Vikramāditya VI. Ballāḷa, who was now on the throne, being an able ruler, was anxious to achieve what his grandfather had failed to realize. He refused to recognize the imperial claims of the weak successors of Bijjaḷa and fought two engagements with them in 1179.¹ From 1180 onwards we find him assuming the title Rājādhirāja and from 1185 the full imperial titles Mahārājādhirāja Parameśvara Paramabhaṭṭāraka Pratāpachakravarti.²

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¹ EC xi, Dg. no. 44; vi, Md. no. 33.

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² Ibid. v, Hn. no. 70; Ak. no. 127.

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When the general political situation was so unsettled, it is no wonder that the Yādavas also should have attempted to secure imperial status for their family. For a time Mallugi was loyal to Tailapa. The victories of his general Dādā over Bijjaḷa had probably been won while he was professing to fight for his feudal lord. When, however, Tailapa had eventually succumbed to Bijjaḷa, the warfare carried on by Mallugi against the latter, his troops being then commanded by Mahīdhara, a son of Dādā, must have been undertaken with the object of overthrowing the Kalachuri power and acquiring imperial status for himself.

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Mallugi, however, did not live long enough to carry out his imperial plans and his death in A.D. 1170 was followed by chaos at the Yādava capital, a state of confusion which prevented the family from taking any effective part in contemporary political developments. Mallugi was succeeded by his eldest son Amaragāṅgeya, who seems to have died after a short reign. If Hemādri’s account is to be trusted here, Amaragāṅgeya was succeeded by Amaramallugi, Govindarāja, and Kāliyaballāḷa. We have no definite information either about the mutual relations of these rulers or about the causes which led to their quick disappearance. There is no doubt that the rapid succession of a number of inefficient rulers at the capital seemed to render every prospect of the Yādavas gaining the imperial position almost hopeless.

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While the descendants of Amaragāṅgeya were thus engaged in fighting with one another and thus weakening the Yādava power, his brother Karṇa and the latter’s son Bhillama were laying the foundations of another Yādava principality which was soon destined to extend its sway over the whole of the Deccan. About Karṇa’s career we have no definite information. He was probably a district officer or a sub-feudatory under his brother Amaragāṅgeya. He had an able son, Bhillama, who was quick to realize that the weak Kalachūri imperial rulers were no longer able to protect their petty vassals. He therefore decided not to fight with his cousins for a share in their small patrimony, but rather to bring under his sway the territories governed by a number of small kings in the Konkan and central Mahārāṣṭra. Like Shivaji in a later age, he began his career by capturing forts in the Konkan. He first defeated the king of Śrivardhana, a port in the Konkan, and then the ruler of Pratyantagaḍa, which is obviously the modern fort of Prachandagada or Torana in the former Bhor State. He then proceeded towards Sholapur where he put to death Billaṇa, king of Maṅgalaveṣṭaka or Mangalavedhe, a small town in that district.

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Bhillama had thus succeeded in securing a fairly large principality for himself in the northern Konkan and central Mahārāṣṭra, whilst affairs at the ancestral Yādava capital were rapidly going from bad to worse. Hemādri tells us that the Royal Fortune of the Yādava family abandoned the legitimate heirs and resorted to Bhillama, an uncle of the weakling on the throne, being attracted by his sterling merit and splendid qualities. In plain language this statement of the court poet means that Bhillama eventually felt himself justified in intervening in the affairs at Sinner, setting aside his cousin, the ruling king, and ascending the throne himself. The precise date of this intervention is not known, but we may not be far wrong in placing it about A.D. 1180.

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Bhillama was not content merely to get back his family patrimony in northern Mahārāṣṭra; he was anxious also to extend its boundaries and influence. The situation in the Karnatak was very much confused and unsettled owing to the triangular fight for supremacy which was going on among the Kalachūris, the Chālukyas, and the Hoysaḷas, but Bhillama does not seem to have thought at first of intervening in it. He turned his attention rather to Mālwā and Gujarāt,¹ in both of which provinces the situation was very favourable for an outside invader. Ajayapāla, the Chaulukya king of Gujarāt, had alienated his Jain subjects, and eventually lost his life at the hands of his own doorkeeper in 1176. His successor Mūlrāja II (1176-78) was a mere child, and was also his younger brother who succeeded him in 1178. Taking advantage of the weakness of the Chaulukya government, Vindhyavarman reconquered Mālwā from the Gurjaras and re-established the Paramāra power in its ancestral home. Vindhyavarman, however, was unable to establish himself firmly in Mālwā and moreover the struggle with the Chaulukyas, though successful in its immediate outcome, had weakened his power and depleted his resources.

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¹ There is no definite and decisive evidence to show that Bhillama's raids in Mālwā and Gujarāt preceded his wars with the Hoysaḷas. But we do know definitely that his hands were quite full with his southern expeditions from A.D. 1185 onwards, and thus it is almost certain that his invasion of Mālwā and Gujarāt must have been planned and carried out earlier when he had no danger to apprehend from the south. For the Kalachuris and the Chālukyas were then engaged in a deadly struggle with each other and with the Hoysaḷas. By first defeating the Paramāras and the Gujarāt Chaulukyas, Bhillama must have aimed at making his northern frontier safe, so that he might have no embarrassments from that direction when later engaged in the deadly struggle with the Chālukyas and Hoysaḷas.

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Bhillama therefore turned his attention to Mālwā and Gujarāt as territories which offered prospects to an invader. The statement in the Mutugi inscription,¹ dated A.D. 1189, that he was ‘a severe pain in the head of the Mālavas’ and ‘the dread roar of a cloud to the flocks of those swans, the Gurjaras’ seems to be more than merely hyperbolical. Yādava armies did actually overrun the whole of Mālwā and Lāṭa or southern Gujarāt. The Chaulukyas, who were just then preoccupied with the problem presented by the Muslim invasions, could offer no effective opposition, and some of Bhillama’s forces apparently penetrated the country as far as Marwar. For Kelhaṇa, the Chāhamāna king of Naḍḍūla, the modern Nadol in the former Jodhpur State, claims to have defeated Bhillama’s troops in that district. His opponent was far away from his base and so he must have decided to return home on meeting with strong opposition at the hands of Kelhaṇa. In the Mutugi inscription Bhillama is also credited with having defeated the kings of Aṅga, Vaṅga, Nepāla, and Pañchāla. This, however, seems to be an empty boast, for there is no real evidence that he ever advanced beyond Gujarāt. His armies returned from the boundaries of Rajputana, covered no doubt with glory, but without securing any permanent extension of territory in the domain of the Yādava kingdom. In the Gujarāt expedition, Bhillama received substantial assistance from his general Jahla, who managed to obtain a cheap victory over the Gurjara forces by skilfully introducing a maddened elephant in their midst, a manœuvre which led to the hasty dispersal and flight of the enemy.

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¹ Sūktimuktāvali, Introduction, v. 11. गुर्जरभूम्रटकंटकविषमेऽतिदुर्गमे चैन। भगदत्तकीर्तिभाजा दुष्टगजः स्वेच्छया नीतः॥ G.O.S. edition reads गुर्जर for गुर्जर; it is obviously a wrong reading.

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Bhillama’s expedition to Mālwā, Gujarāt, and Rajputana clearly did not result in any material addition to his dominions. It, however, increased his self-confidence and made him feel that he might well launch an equally successful attack against his southern neighbours and thus secure the imperial position for his house. While he was engaged in the north, rapid changes had taken place in the Karnatak. The Kalachuri power, which had been previously weakened by the attacks of the Hoysaḷa king Ballāḷa, was finally overthrown by the Chālukya ruler Someśvara IV in A.D. 1183. Someśvara, however, does not appear to have been himself a military leader; the victory was almost entirely due to the genius and energy of his commander-in-chief, Brahma. A number of contemporary records describe this general as the upholder of Chālukya glory and as a fire of destruction to the Kalachuri family. He was a skilful leader of the elephant phalanx and had managed to capture sixty of the enemy’s elephants in the decisive engagement which sealed the fate of the Kalachūris.²

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² EI, vi, 96.

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Someśvara, however, was not destined to enjoy the fruits of his general’s victory for very long. The Hoysaḷa ruler Ballāḷa decided to make a bid for the imperial position and Bhillama also felt that he had an equally good chance of success in this direction. The attenuated and weakened Chāḷukya empire was thus invaded almost simultaneously from the north by Bhillama and from the south by Ballāḷa. Someśvara decided to deal with the southern invader first and dispatched his general Brahma against Ballāḷa. This time, however, Brahma was unable to win a victory for his master. His strong elephant phalanx was outmanœuvred by the more quickly moving cavalry divisions of Ballāḷa and the Chāḷukya power was completely shattered. Someśvara made no attempt to defend his capital at Kalyāṇi. We find him swiftly retreating and setting up his new seat of government at Jayantipura or Banavāsi, whence he continued to maintain a precarious existence down to 1189 with the help of his Kadamba feudatory Kāmadeva.¹

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¹ *EC*, xi, Cd. no. 93.

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It is very probable—though there is no definite evidence on the point—that Ballāḷa pressed his successful advance still farther and actually captured Kalyāṇi, the imperial capital. It is extremely unlikely that he would have allowed it to remain in the hands of a Chāḷukya army when its chief had deserted his capital and fled to Banavāsi.

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Such was the general political situation when Bhillama decided to throw out a challenge to Ballāḷa, and to make a bid for the imperial position in the Deccan. The Hoysaḷa army was no doubt flushed with its recent sensational victories, but it seems to have been at the same time considerably weakened by them. For Bhillama was able to secure a resounding victory over it and to plant his imperial Eagle-flag on the ramparts of Kalyāṇi, which had been the capital of the Deccan for about two centuries. Ballāḷa had to beat a hasty retreat to his own capital of Dvārāsamudra, and the whole of the southern Chāḷukya empire, which he had conquered from Brahma and Someśvara,² who promptly occupied the whole territory and pursued the retreating Hoysaḷa forces at least as far as the Hassan District in Mysore State. Periya Sahana, the commander-in-chief of his cavalry, seems to have taken a leading part in this brilliant campaign. The new territories were in any case put under his charge.³ Certain records of Bhillama seem to indicate that he started a new reckoning of his regnal years in 1187;⁴ it is probable that this was the year of his epoch-making capture of Kalyāṇi.

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² The statement of Hemādri that the Hoysaḷa king was killed at or after the fall of Kalyāṇi must be incorrect, if it is intended to refer to the reigning Hoysaḷa ruler Ballāḷa. Probably some collateral prince of the Hoysaḷa family may have fallen while defending this city.

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³ *EI*, xv, 59.

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⁴ *SIER*, 1930, App. E, no. 18.

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Ballāḷa had been long planning to secure the paramount position in the Deccan for his family and he was not prepared to give up the struggle even after the loss of Kalyāṇi. He spent a couple of years in reorganizing his forces and then began his march northwards with a view to reoccupying the southern provinces of the defunct Chālukya empire. By June, A.D. 1189, he had managed to establish his supremacy over Banavāsi and Noḷambavāḍi,¹ and thence proceeded to invade the Bijapur and Dhārwar Districts, probably as a prelude to the ultimate capture of Kalyāṇi.

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¹ EC, v, Ak. no. 57.

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Bhillama was not slow to realize the danger threatening him from this new move by Ballāḷa. He marshalled a strong force consisting of 200,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry, and moved out to meet the invader. In June, A.D. 1191, we find him already encamped at Gadag in the Dharwar District in the course of his southward march. Soon after this date the two rival claimants for the sovereignty of the Deccan met each other at Soratur in the neighbourhood of Dharwar where a sanguinary battle was fought. This time Ballāḷa was completely successful and the Yādava army was defeated with great slaughter. ‘In order further to sow the seeds for the growth of his glory’, says a contemporary Hoysaḷa record,² ‘this emperor of the south prepared the ground by his conquest and from Soratur as far as Belvola, made it fit for being turned up by the ploughshares of the cultivators, having manured it with the bodies of the myriad brave warriors of the Sevaṇa army.’

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² Annegiri plates, dated A.D. 1192; EC, v, Cn. no. 179.

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There may be some exaggeration in the language used in this record, but there can be no doubt that the Hoysaḷa victory was a decisive one. Jaitrapāla, the Yādava general, tried to stem the tide of victory by taking shelter in the stronghold of Lokkiguṇḍi (modern Lokkundi), but Ballāḷa captured the fort without much difficulty. The Yādava general was killed while defending this place, and after its loss the Yādava retreat degenerated into a complete rout. Ballāḷa captured a number of important forts such as Erambara (Yellurga in the Hyderabad State), Kurrugod (near Bellary), Gutti (about 50 miles east of Bellary), and Hangal. The Yādavas were all driven across the Kṛṣṇā and the Malaprabhā and the territories to their north completely cleared of them, these rivers continuing for twenty years thereafter to be the boundary between the two contending powers.

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A Hoysaḷa record dated A.D. 1198 tells us how Ballāḷa moistened his sword with the blood of the Pāṇḍya king, whetted it on the grindstone of the head of Bhillama and sheathed it in the lotus mouth of Jaitugi.³ It is known that the battle of Soratur was fought sometime toward the end of A.D. 1191, which is also known to have been the period of the accession of Bhillama’s son and successor Jaitugi.⁴ It is also known that Kāmadeva, the Pāṇḍya king of Ucchangi, and Jaitugi, the general of Bhillama, both died while fighting against the Hoysaḷas.

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³ EC, vi, Belur no. 77.

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⁴ Bijapur inscription shows that December 1196 fell in the sixth regnal year of Jaitugi; BG, 1, ii, 521.

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May we then accept the claim of Ballāḷa that he killed in battle not only Jaitugi and Kāmadeva but also his chief foe Bhillama V? Probably not, for this claim seems to be an exaggerated one. The Gadag inscriptions of Ballāla, issued within a year of his sensational victories and engraved at a town which had witnessed his victorious marches and battles, state that the Hoysaḷa ruler killed in action only Jaitrasimha, who is also expressly described therein as the right hand of Bhillama. This document was composed by Agniśarman under the express direction of King Ballāla and it is very unlikely that it would have omitted to mention the death of Bhillama on the battlefield, had it in fact taken place. It appears that Bhillama, who was already an ageing man, was much shaken by this defeat, which finally shattered all the dreams of his life, and died broken-hearted soon afterwards. Poets of the later Hoysaḷa records, therefore, felt themselves justified in describing their master as having used the head of Bhillama as a whetting stone for his sword.¹

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¹ Messrs. Venkatasubbayah and Srikantya have given a different version of the events of the Yādava-Hoysala struggle. They argue that the battle of Soratur took place just before December 1190, that Bhillama reorganized his forces and reinvaded the Hoysaḷa kingdom about June 1191, recapturing then most of the forts previously wrested from his hands, that he was defeated a second time and killed sometime between June and December of 1191, and that Ballāla recaptured the forts in the course of the next two or three years (IHQ, iv, 120; NIA, i, 414). It seems most unlikely that if Bhillama had been so signally defeated in the battle of Soratur, as he is said to have been in the Hoysaḷa records, he could so soon have reorganized his forces and succeeded in the course of only six months in driving Ballāla from most of the forts which had been taken from him just before.

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Before concluding our account of the career of Bhillama, we have to refer to the story of the marriage of Pṛthvīrāja Chāhamāna with Śaśivratā, a daughter of Bhānu, a Yādava king of Devagiri, as narrated by Chandbardai in his *Pṛthvirāja Rāso*.² With his usual poetic embellishments and exaggerated descriptions, the bard tells us how Śaśivratā and Pṛthvīrāja fell in love on hearing of each other in the songs of a wandering bard who visited each court in turn; how their love for a time appeared destined to be frustrated since Śaśivratā’s marriage had been otherwise arranged by her father with Virachandra, a nephew of Jayachandra, the king of Kanauj; and how Pṛthvīrāja galloped off to Devagiri in the nick of time and managed to carry away the willing princess, leaving his army behind him to defeat the Yādava and Gāhaḍavāla forces. Pṛthvīrāja and Jayachandra may in some sense be regarded as rival kings of Pañchāla, and Yādava inscriptions claim, as we have shown above, that Bhillama had defeated the king of that country. It is, however, very difficult to say whether any historic facts are reflected in the bardic story narrated by Chandbardai. The name of the Yādava king Bhānu in his account is somewhat similar to that of Bhillama and there is nothing inherently improbable in the idea that a Yādava king should have planned his daughter’s marriage with a prince of the Kanauj family. But unless some reliable historical evidence should become available to show that the Gāhaḍavāla and Chāhamāna armies did really move into the Deccan to fight a battle there with each other, one cannot accept the story as historical. It may be a bardic invention with the object of showing that the feud between Pṛthvīrāja and Jayachandra was one of long standing and did not originate merely with the marriage of Saṃyogitā. The account of the marriage of Śaśivratā is merely a revised edition of the story of the svayaṃvara of Saṃyōgitā; it also contains a serious anachronism when it represents Devagiri as the Yādava capital in about 1180. Bhillama is not known to have had a son named Narendra as the Rāsao asserts (25, 174). As matters stand today, it appears to have hardly any actual historical foundation.

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² *Samaya*, 25.

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Whether Bhillama was killed on the battlefield or not, there can be no doubt that his career had a very tragic end. A series of victories which he had won, first against the Paramāras and Gujarāt Chaulukyas and then against the Karnatak Chālukyas and the Hoysaḷas, had naturally led him to think that he would remain the undisputed overlord of the Deccan, but all his plans were upset on the fateful battlefield of Soratur. The territory between the Kṛṣṇā and the Tuṅgabhadrā, which was destined to be the bone of contention for centuries between the Deccani and Mysorean powers, slipped away from his hands and was annexed by the Hoysaḷa king Ballāḷa II, who captured and occupied all the important forts and cities in it. Bhillama was more than sixty at this time and he must have died broken-hearted, just as the Peshwa Nānasāhib did after the battle of Pānipat.

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The tragic end of Bhillama should not, however, blind us to his greatness as a warrior and statesman. He was a self-made man; he had inherited hardly any patrimony. He had to carve out a principality for himself in the northern Konkan and southern Mahārāṣṭra. His intervention in the affairs of the Yādava clan of Sinner was no doubt a usurpation from one point of view, but there can be no doubt that the Yādava family would never have become the overlords of the Deccan had third-rate rulers like Amaragāṅgeya and Kāliyaballāḷa continued to be at the helm of its affairs for very much longer. Bhillama not only consolidated his power in Mahārāṣṭra, but also carried out successful raids into Mālwā and Gujarāt, which brought glory to his arms and riches into his treasury. He intervened in Karnatak politics at the right moment and managed to oust both the Chālukyas and the Hoysaḷas. His armies at one time overran and occupied the whole of the Raichur Doab. He had well and truly laid the foundation of the Yādava empire. For we should not forget that even after the decisive victory at Soratur his opponent Ballāḷa did not dare to cross the Kṛṣṇā and march into Mahārāṣṭra. The Yādava armies, though defeated, were not annihilated, and the enemy dared not beard the lion in his own den. To conclude, like most founders of empires, Bhillama was a soldier, a statesman, and a man of tact and vision.

Jaitugi

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(A.D. 1191 TO 1210(?))

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Bhillama was succeeded by his son Jaitugi towards the end of A.D. 1191. It was once believed that this prince met his end during the Karnatak campaign of his father, but that view is no longer tenable. The Jaitugi or Jaitrasimha, killed in the Hoysaḷa war, is obviously the person of that name mentioned as Bhillama's feudatory general and minister in a Gadag record.¹ Had Jaitugi, the crown prince, fallen in the war, Hoysaḷa records would not have failed to mention his relationship with the Yādava king; they would certainly not have remained content merely to record his name. In fact, Hemādri definitely mentions him as having ruled, and contemporary records have also been found which refer to his reign and thus support the historian.²

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¹ *EI*, iii, 219.

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² Fleet, *BG*, i, ii, 521.

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The affairs of the Yādava kingdom were in a critical state at the time of the accession of Jaitugi.³ It appeared as if the Hoysaḷa armies, flushed with their recent victories, would cross the Kṛṣṇā and overrun the whole Yādava kingdom. Jaitugi was undoubtedly a soldier of great courage and resolution, for he was not at all unnerved by the recent disasters. He reorganized his forces and presented such a strong front that Ballāḷa had to give up the idea of pressing his victories further and crowning them with the capture of Kalyāṇī and Devagiri. The two sides tacitly accepted the Malaprabhā-Kṛṣṇā line as the boundary of their kingdoms and neither made any attempt to cross it for nearly two decades.

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³ A Hoysaḷa record dated 1194 (*EC*, v, Arsikere no. 5) no doubt mentions Ballāḷa's capture of the fort of Lokkundi from Jaitugi. But it does not refer to this as a recent event; the capture of the fort there mentioned was in all probability really that which took place while it was held by the minister Jaitrapāla, who actually died while defending his command during the preceding reign.

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Jaitugi, however, was anxious to rehabilitate the military reputation of his army by obtaining victories elsewhere, and decided to launch an offensive against the rising power of the Kākatīyas in Telangana. The Yādavas felt that since they were the successors of the Chāḷukyas, all the former feudatories of the latter should at once automatically recognize their overlordship. The Kākatīyas not only did not do so, but exploited the critical situation which had arisen following the disastrous Karnatak campaign by launching an attack on the Yādavas from their rear. It would appear that on at least one occasion the Kākatīya armies penetrated as far as the Yādava capital under the generalship of Mahādeva, the brother of the reigning king.⁴ Jaitugi had to bide his time for a while. When affairs on the Kṛṣṇā front became more settled about A.D. 1194, and it was evident that there would be no immediate danger of a Hoysaḷa invasion, he launched a sudden hurricane attack against the Kākatīyas. The reigning Kākatīya monarch Rudra was killed in the course of the campaign;¹ Hemādri grows eloquent in describing how Jaitugi performed a human sacrifice by immolating a victim in the shape of the fierce Rudra, the king of Telangana.

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⁴ The Garavapada inscription, *EI*, xviii, 351. This incident could not have happened during the short reign of Mahādeva himself, for at that time the Yādavas were in effective occupation of the greater portion of the Kākatīya kingdom. It could have happened only during the reign of Rudra, when the Yādavas were engaged in a deadly struggle with the Hoysaḷas.

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¹ In Hemādri’s *praśasti*, the Kākatīya king killed in war is described as Raudra, which would suggest that not Rudra himself, but a son of his, was killed on the battlefield. If Rudra had died a natural death instead of being killed in the war, there would not have supervened that chaos in the Kākatīya kingdom which has been so graphically described by the Pālampet inscription (*Hyderabad Arch. Series*, Monograph 3). And in fact Rudra is not known to have had a son; he was succeeded by his brother Mahādeva. We have, therefore, to conclude that in Hemādri’s *praśasti*, *raudra* is a clerical mistake for *rudra*, due to a scribe anxious to differentiate between the two consecutive words in the expression *rudrasya rudrākṛteḥ*. Dāsgupta’s suggestion that Raudra may refer to the successor of Rudra—his brother Mahādera (*IC*, iv. 475)—seems very improbable. A brother is never denoted by this *tadhita* word-formation.

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The death of the king on the battlefield broke down all the Kākatīya resistance; for a Kākatīya record itself describes how chaos followed that event and how a number of chieftains ‘sought to claim the hand of the Kākatīya Royal Glory, who for a time found herself in a thorny jungle’.²

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² Pālampet Inscription, *Hyderabad Arch. Series*, Monograph 3.

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The death of Rudra took place soon after A.D. 1195. The Kākatīya history during the next few years is obscured by a veil of considerable confusion and uncertainty. It appears that either in the fateful battle in which Rudra was killed, or soon thereafter, Jaitugi succeeded in taking prisoner Gaṇapati, who was a nephew of the dead Kākatīya monarch. This prince remained in captivity at Devagiri, but resistance to the Yādava invaders continued to be offered by his father Mahādeva, who had succeeded his brother Rudra in about 1196. Mahādeva was ably assisted by Racherla, one of Rudra’s generals.

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Mahādeva’s efforts to drive out the invader proved as unsuccessful as those of his brother, and he too died on the battlefield in conflict with the Yādava invaders. A Kākatīya record clearly admits this fact when it describes in flowery terms how this ruler fell asleep in the battlefield on the temple of his royal elephant and awoke in heaven to find his head resting on the bosom of his heavenly spouse.

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The death of Mahādeva intensified the chaos in the Kākatīya kingdom. Darkness and confusion prevailed all around, life and property became unsafe, and Brāhmans could no longer discharge their religious functions. It seems that for a time Jaitugi sought to annex the whole kingdom and administer it from Devagiri. He did not succeed in this effort and he therefore eventually decided to follow the traditional policy of Hindu princes which recommends that a conqueror should reinstate a relative of the last ruler upon the throne of the conquered country. Gaṇapati, the son of Mahādeva, was already a captive in his hands³ and he decided to place him on the Kākatiya throne, naturally after securing a promise from him that he would rule as a loyal feudatory.

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³ Ibid.

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At what exact date Gaṇapati was released from imprisonment in Yādava capital and reinstated in his kingdom we do not know.¹ There was un-questionably an intervening period of anarchy as suggested by the Pālampet inscription. We need not, however, now suppose that the period was a long one or that Gaṇapati continued to live as a captive in Devagiri until about 1210;² for an inscription of his has been recently discovered which shows that he was ruling as a king in 1203.³ His later inscriptions prove that A.D. 1198 was his first regnal year and we may therefore conclude that he was really released in that year soon after the death of his father. Gaṇapati for a long time continued to be a loyal feudatory of his overlord.

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¹ The view of R. G. Bhandarkar that Gaṇapati was kept in prison by his uncle Rudra (EHD, p. 186) and the conjecture of N. N. Dasgupta that he was imprisoned by his father for misconduct (IC, iii, 474) are both untenable. The issue is clinched by the expression *yudhi dhritam* which shows conclusively that Gaṇapati was taken prisoner in war.

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² This is the view of Dr. Ram Rao, who thought that Gaṇapati might have dated his regnal years not from the time of his actual accession but from the time of the death of his father. (JAHRS, vi, 54.) His main argument in support of this suggestion was that there are no inscriptions of Gaṇapati prior to A.D. 1209.

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³ *A Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts*, p. 40.

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Very few other political events in the reign of Jaitugi are known. He is credited with the defeat of the kings of the Pāṇḍyas, the Choḷas, the Mālavas, the Lāṭas, the Gurjaras, the Turushakas, and the rulers of Nepāla and Pāñchāla in one record.⁴ But there is no doubt that most of this claim is a mere empty boast. The Yādava armies certainly did not again cross the Kṛishṇā after their disastrous defeat in the earlier reign, and thus the alleged victory over the Choḷas and the Pāṇḍyas must be purely imaginary. The claim to the overthrow of the kings of Nepāla, Pāñchāla, and the Turushakas seems to be equally unfounded. The statement, however, that he defeated the kings of Lāṭa (southern Gujarāt) and Mālwā may perhaps refer to some frontier skirmishes with the forces of these states which lay to the north of the Yādava kingdom. It does not seem probable that the Yādava armies ever penetrated deeply into any of these principalities during the reign of Jaitugi. His hands were in any case too full of the Hoysaḷa and Kākatiya affairs. Exploiting the situation created by the discomfiture of the Chaulukya king Bhima at the hands of Aibak, Subhaṭavarman, the Paramāra ruler of Mālwā, attacked King Siṃha of southern Gujarāt, who was a Chaulukya feudatory. It is likely that, taking advantage of the preoccupation of Subhaṭavarman with this affair, Sahadeva, a general of Jaitugi in charge of the northern frontier, may have carried out a raid into Mālwā. This seems to be the only historic fact underlying the claim to the defeat of Mālava, Lāṭa, and Gurjara kings put forward on behalf of Jaitugi in the Mangoli inscription.

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⁴ Mangoli Inscription, EI, v, 33.

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Sankama was the chief minister (*mahāpradhana*) and general of Jaitugi.⁵

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⁵ BG, i, ii, 521.

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He was given the fief of the Tardavadi one thousand. Probably he had been largely responsible for the success of the Kākatīya campaign. There were a number of feudatories in the kingdom, not all of whom had yet transferred their allegiance to the new imperial power. In Khandesh, however, the Nikumbha brothers Soideva and Hemāḍideva were ruling as loyal vassals of the Yādava king.

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Jaitugi was not merely a soldier. He had a real love for scholarship and patronized men of learning. Lakshmīdhara, a son of Bhāskarāchārya the famous astronomer, was selected by him as his chief court pandit. Like his father, Lakshmīdhara also excelled as a scholar.

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It is difficult to state when precisely the reign of Jaitugi came to an end. A.D. 1196 is so far his latest known date from inscriptions,¹ and a solitary record of his successor Siṃhaṇa suggests that he began to rule as early as A.D. 1197.² But epigraphical evidence is very conflicting on this point.³ One set of records would show that A.D. 1200 was his first regnal year;⁴ a second set suggests that it may be A.D. 1207⁵ and a third set indicates that he ascended the throne only in A.D. 1210.⁶ There is no doubt that Jaitugi continued to rule after A.D. 1197; for otherwise he could not have been credited with the restoration of Gaṇapati, which did certainly not take place before A.D. 1198. It seems that from A.D. 1200 onwards Siṃhaṇa was formally associated with his father in the administration as *yuvarāja*, and therefore some of his later records are seen counting his regnal years from that date. The balance of evidence seems to show that Jaitugi continued to rule throughout the first decade of the thirteenth century and was succeeded by his son only in 1210.⁷

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¹ BG, I, ii, 521.

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² ASR, 1928-9, p. 172.

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³ At one and the same village, Kandgall, two records suggest that A.D. 1200 was the first regnal year, but a third one shows that it could not have begun before 1210. ASR, 1928-9, p. 118.

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⁴ Kandgall inscriptions, dated in A.D. 1220 and 1208 respectively, are stated to be in the twentieth and eighth regnal year respectively of King Siṃhaṇa. ASR, 1928-9, p. 118. See also SMHD, ii, 58.

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⁵ ASR, 1928-30, p. 175. The Kallaru stone inscription (EC, viii, Sb. no. 293) suggests 1208-9 as the initial year.

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⁶ The Kadkal inscription (IA, xii, 100), the Kuppataru inscription (EC, viii, Sb. no. 250), and the Elevata inscription (ibid., Sb. no. 402) suggest a third date.

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⁷ It is possible to argue that Siṃhaṇa ascended the throne in A.D. 1200 and that a second coronation took place in 1210 to mark some important conquest, when a new regnal reckoning was initiated. This, however, does not seem to have been actually the case.

Siṃhaṇa

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(c. 1210 (?) to 1247)

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Siṃhaṇa,⁸ who succeeded his father in about 1210, was undoubtedly the most important and powerful ruler among the Yādavas. He had acted as *yuvarāja* for about ten years, during which he had received valuable training in administration and the conduct of military campaigns. He had taken an active part in the successful operations against the Kākatīyas, and had learnt valuable lessons in warfare from his experiences.¹ The defeat inflicted by Ballāla on his grandfather rankled in his mind and he was eager to avenge it. He was also anxious to curb the power of troublesome feudatories, who were always ready to exploit the difficulties of the imperial power. He was an able ruler and a skilful general and it was his ambition to make the Yādava empire as extensive as that of the Chālukyas. He was able to realize this ambition since he was favoured with a long life and had the skill to select competent officers and the wisdom to repose confidence in them.

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⁸ Siṃhaṇa's birth was regarded as a favour granted by the goddess Nārasimhī of Paṇakheta; hence he was named after her. See the Tasgaon Plates v, 51; SMHD, iii, 12.

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¹ A few late records credit him with the beheading of one Telanga king and the placing of another upon the empty throne (Munoli inscription, *JBBRAS*, xii, 42; Chikka Sakuna inscription, *MASR*, 1929, p. 143). This tradition is, however, obviously a reflection of the fact that he, as *yuvarāja*, co-operated with his father in bringing about these events.

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His first object after his accession was to avenge the disaster of Soratur. Already as *yuvarāja* he had taken part in the southward expansion of the Yādava power. The Kṛṣṇā-Malaprabhā boundary line between the Yādava and Hoysaḷa kingdoms was in fact disturbed as early as A.D. 1206; for an inscription dated in that year shows that part of Bijapur District had been already conquered by that time and put in charge of a Yādava general named Keśavadeva.² The war against the Hoysaḷas was continued with redoubled energy and grim determination after Siṃhaṇa's accession in A.D. 1210. A Gadag inscription shows that the greater part of the Dharwar District was already in his possession in 1213.³ His armies had, however, penetrated even a year earlier much farther to the south and had overrun the greater part of the Anantpur, Bellary, Chitaldurg, and Shimoga Districts, as is made quite clear by a number of Yādava records discovered in these districts.⁴ The campaign was conducted under the personal supervision and direction of Siṃhaṇa himself. The whole of Banvasi (the Shimoga District of Mysore) was annexed before A.D. 1215 and handed over to Sarvādhikarin Mayideva who was a great confidant of the emperor.⁵ In A.D. 1222 this commander was succeeded by Vanka Ravata, an officer hailing from Karad in the Satara District.⁶

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² *SIER*, 1927-8, App. E, no. 264.

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³ *IA*, ii, 297.

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⁴ *EC*, viii, Sb. 221, 224, 227, 309, 376; *SII*, ix, nos. 363-7.

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⁵ *EC*, vii, S. no. 95; Hl. nos. 44 and 48.

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⁶ Ibid., Hl. no. 20.

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The Anantpur and Bellary Districts of the Madras presidency and the Chitaldurg District of Mysore had also been brought under the Yādava sway and were being governed at this time either by officers directly appointed by the emperor or by feudatories who professed whole-hearted allegiance to the Yādava conqueror. It may be added here that all this territory continued to be governed by the Yādavas practically throughout the thirteenth century, for a large number of inscriptions of all the later Yādavas are found in it. It is clear that the succeeding Hoysaḷa rulers reconciled themselves to its loss and did not attempt its reconquest.

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The Karnatak expedition came to a successful end by A.D. 1215 but Siṃhaṇa could not give any long respite to his troops. We find him engaged in an arduous campaign against the Kolhapur Śilāhāra king, Bhoja II, in A.D. 1216 which kept his forces busy for a period of about two years. The cause of the war was the imperial ambition of the contending rulers. Vijayāditya, the father of Bhoja II, had played the role of king-maker and had helped Bijjaḷa to oust Taila III and to secure the Kalyāṇi throne. Bhoja (A.D. 1175-1215) naturally decided to assume imperial titles when he found the Chāḷukyas, the Kalachūris, the Yādavas, and the Hoysaḷas engaged in an apparently interminable internecine conflict. In A.D. 1187 we discover him calling himself Vikrama of the Kali Age¹ and in A.D. 1205 we find Somadeva, a protégé of his, according him imperial titles like Paramabhaṭṭāraka, Rājādhirāja, and Paśchimachakravarti.² It is clear that the discomfiture of the Yādavas at the hands of the Hoysaḷas and their later commitments in Āndhradeśa made Bhoja feel that the time was opportune for him to assert his independence. He decided to measure his strength with the Yādavas and it seems that he attacked them in the rear when they were engaged in their Karnatak offensive during A.D. 1210-15. Following his victorious return, Siṃhaṇa therefore decided to remove this thorn from his side, once for all, and invaded the Śilāhāra kingdom. Bhoja suffered a defeat and fled from his capital Kolhapur to the adjoining fort of Parnāḷa or Panhāḷā. Siṃhaṇa has been described as ‘an eagle who caused the serpent in the form of the mighty ruler Bhoja, hiding in the fort of Parnāḷa, to take to flight’.³ It would seem that the fort could not endure a prolonged siege and that Bhoja had to abandon this stronghold and take refuge elsewhere.

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¹ Graham, *Kolhapur*, p. 397.

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² IA, x, 756.

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³ BG, I, ii, 254.

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The subsequent fate of Bhoja is not known. Nothing more is heard of him. He was at this time already an old man and seems to have died either in the battle or of a broken heart soon afterwards. He had a son named Gaṇḍarāditya, but there is no evidence whatsoever to show that this prince was allowed to rule as a feudatory. We begin from this date onwards to get Yādava inscriptions in Kolhapur itself, the Śilāhāra capital, the earliest of which, dated in A.D. 1218, refers to the erection of a gate before the temple of Ambabai by Tailaṇa, an officer of Siṃhaṇa.⁴ It is therefore clear that Siṃhaṇa thought Kolhapur to be an important strategic place which should be under his own direct administration and decided to annex the Śilāhāra kingdom. The annexation took place just before A.D. 1217, for a Yādava record, dated in that year though hailing from the distant Shimoga District, delights in describing Siṃhaṇa as a Vajra (thunderbolt) to the Parnāḷa fort.⁵ Obviously the capture of the fort was an important recent feat and had to be duly proclaimed to the new Yādava subjects in the Karnatak.

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⁴ SMHD, iii, 19.

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⁵ EC, viii, Sb. no. 135.

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The relations between the Yādavas on the one hand and the Paramāras and Chaulukyas on the other were never very cordial. We have seen already that Bhillama V had invaded the territories of both these powers in A.D. 1185. During the next thirty years the Chaulukya kingdom became steadily weaker, but the Yādavas were unable to take advantage of this owing to their reverses in the south and their subsequent efforts to retrieve their fortunes and improve their position on that frontier. The Paramāra king Subhaṭavarman, however, was still smarting from the memory of the wanton invasions of his province by the Chaulukyas during the preceding half century and advanced to invade Gujarāt soon after the overthrow of the Chaulukya forces by Quṭb-ud-Dīn Aibak in A.D. 1194. The Chaulukya king Bhīma was unable to withstand this attack and had to submit to defeat. Later on, southern Gujarāt was also wrested from the Gurjara kingdom, and the Chāhamāna chief Siṃha, who was ruling there as a feudatory of the Chaulukyas, was obliged to transfer his allegiance to Subhaṭavarman. From Broach as his base Subhaṭavarman invaded Gujarāt and captured its capital. His success, however, was but short-lived, for very soon he was driven out by Lavaṇaprasāda, a minister of Bhīma. The Paramāras, however, continued to exercise overlordship over Siṃha, the king of Lāṭa, even during the reign of Arjunavarman (c. A.D. 1210-17), the successor of Subhaṭavarman.

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Such was the situation in Mālwā and Gujarāt when, elated by his signal successes in the south, Siṃhaṇa decided to try his luck in the north. The new Paramāra ruler Arjunavarman had married a Hoysaḷa princess,¹ named Sarvakalā, who was probably a daughter or granddaughter of the Hoysaḷa king Ballāḷa. While Siṃhaṇa was inflicting a series of defeats upon the Hoysaḷa king, we may well presume that his Paramāra son-in-law did not remain a passive spectator of the misfortunes of his wife’s relations. He may have attacked or at least prepared to attack Siṃhaṇa from the north. Accordingly as soon as his hands became relatively free from his commitments in the Karnatak and Kolhapur, Siṃhaṇa launched a counter-offensive against Mālwā in A.D. 1215.

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¹ EI, viii p. 103, v. ii.

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The expedition seems to have been fairly successful. Hemādri claims that Arjunavarman was not only defeated but also killed in the battle, and when we remember that this ruler’s reign came to an abrupt close before A.D. 1216 or 1217, we may well accept the statement.² After the overthrow of the Paramāras, the position of King Siṃha of Lāṭa became very critical. He was no match for Siṃhaṇa. He therefore transferred his allegiance to his former suzerain and the Chaulukya king Bhīma was able to enlist the help of his able minister Lavaṇaprasāda. The drama *Hammiramadamardana* which refers to this alliance is, however, curiously enough, silent as to the events that followed it.³ The *Kirtikaumudī*, however, states that Lavaṇaprasāda compelled Simhaṇa to retire.¹ But it is difficult to be sure whether this retirement refers to the expedition of A.D. 1215 or to a later invasion. It would seem that Simhaṇa was satisfied with his victory in Mālwā and did not think it worth while to risk an attack on Lāṭa as a part of the same campaign, after he had learned that its king had made an alliance with the Gurjara ruler. In any case his army returned to the capital in about A.D. 1218, for we find his victories in Mālwā and Gujarāt being made known in a proclamation to his new Karnatak subjects as early as September 1218.² The kings of Lāṭa and Gujarāt could describe the return of Simhaṇa with some justification as a victory for their own forces.³ Though foiled in his plan of the conquest of Lāṭa, Simhaṇa must have been pleased with the total outcome of his expedition, for it had completely broken the power of the Paramāras, a feat which was a necessary prelude to the conquest of Gujarāt.

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² It may, however, be pointed out that some doubt arises about the truth of Hemādri’s claim from the circumstance that the Bahāl inscription, dated A.D. 1222, refers only to the defeat and not to the death of Arjunavarman.

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³ Act I, v. 13.

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¹ EC, vii, Sk. no. 91.

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³ Vasantavilāsa, v, 30.

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With his armies once more free from commitments in Karnatak and Kolhapur, Simhaṇa launched a large and well-equipped expedition against Lāṭa in A.D. 1220. Kholeśvara, a Brāhman general of Simhaṇa, who had already distinguished himself on several battlefields, was selected to lead the Yādava army. The choice was a happy one, for the fief of the general lay in Khandesh and Berar, and so he was quite familiar with the terrain of the country in which his forces were to operate. Lāṭa, or southern Gujarāt, was still being ruled by the Chāhamāna ruler Simha. His was a small kingdom and he had formerly been able to withstand the Yādavas simply because he could at that time be sure of the backing either of the Paramāras or of the Chaulukyas. But the Paramāra power had now been broken and the Chaulukya throne had been usurped by an upstart named Jayantasimha. Both Bhīma and his minister Lavaṇaprasāda were more concerned in ousting this usurper than in helping Simha, who had never been really steadfast in his loyalty to them. Kholeśvara therefore secured an easy victory; in the battle that ensued King Simha was killed and so also was his brother Sindhurāja. The latter's son Saṅgrāmasimha, or Śankha, was taken prisoner and the Yādava flag was planted on the ramparts of Broach.⁴ The Ambe inscription of Kholeśvara,

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⁴ The date A.D. 1222, which has been given in the text above as that of the expedition in which Simha and Sindhurāja were killed and Śaṅkha taken prisoner, is a conjectural though a very probable one. The Ambe inscription of 1228 mentions the death in battle of King Simha. The Hammīramadamardana, composed sometime between A.D. 1220 and 1230, refers not only to the death of Simha's brother Sindhurāja at the hands of the Yādavas, but also discloses that Saṅgrāmasimha had already at this time been released from the Yādava prison and had twice tried to organize an expedition against Gujarāt with the help of Simhaṇa. Probably Saṅgrāmasimha's demand for the restoration of Cambay (referred to in the Vasantavilāsa, canto V) was also made before A.D. 1230. Saṅgrāmasimha therefore must have been occupying the throne of Broach for some years before A.D. 1230. The defeat and death of his father and uncle and his own imprisonment may therefore have taken place in c. A.D. 1222.

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दक्षिणः चोखिपालपि धनसैन्योत्यविक्रमः ।
येन तदिपरीतेन परित्यजति विग्रहम् ।

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dated A.D. 1228, describes how the victorious general raised his column of victory on the shore at Broach. Siṃhaṇa, however, decided not to annex Lāṭa; after a while he released Saṅgrāmasiṃha from captivity and allowed him to rule at Broach as his own feudatory. This second expedition of Siṃhaṇa may be presumed to have ended about A.D. 1223.

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At about this time both the Chaulukyas and the Paramāras had become very much weakened and Saṅgrāmasiṃha therefore decided to improve his position with the help of Siṃhaṇa by remaining consistently loyal to him. While his father and uncle were engaged in the war with the Yādavas, Lavaṇaprasāda, the *de facto* Chaulukya ruler, had seized the important port of Cambay belonging to the kingdom of Lāṭa and annexed it to Gujarāt. Vāstupāla was appointed its governor in A.D. 1219 and the city had begun to prosper under his able administration. Very soon, however, Gujarāt was threatened from the north by the king of Marwar, and the Muslims also began to make ominous movements of their armies with a view to attack Aṇahilapaṭṭaṇa. Saṅgrāmasiṃha decided to exploit this situation for his own advantage and sent an ultimatum to Vāstupāla to surrender Broach to him. On Vāstupāla’s refusal to do so, he attacked the city, but failed miserably in his venture. He had to retire discomfited and disgraced.¹ The precise date of this event is difficult to determine, but it may perhaps be placed in about A.D. 1225.

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