The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c15.s1: Origin of the Dynasty and Early Feudatory Rulers
The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c15.s1
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Contents
- v2.c15.s1.t1 Successors of Bēta II — 26 parts
Origin of the Dynasty and Early Feudatory Rulers
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THE Kākatīyas rose to power during the dominion of the Chālukyas of Kalyāṇi. The attempt made by certain scholars to trace the descent of this dynasty from Kākartya Guṇḍyana, a subordinate of the Eastern Chālukyan king, Amma II (A.D. 945-70), cannot be said to have been successful, since the evidence adduced by them is not strong enough to support their thesis. It is indeed possible that the names Kākartya, Kākatya, and Kākatīya are etymologically connected, but there is no ground to warrant the belief that the Kākatīya kings of Anumakoṇḍa and Warangal were really the descendants of Guṇḍyana, the feudatory of the Eastern Chālukyan Amma II.
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Bēta II, a subordinate of Tribhuvanamalla Vikramāditya VI (A.D. 1076-1126), was the first prince of the Kākatīya family to leave behind any records of his rule. His Anumakoṇḍa and Kāzīpēṭa epigraphs, dated respectively in A.D. 1079 and A.D. 1090, not only indicate clearly the period during which he flourished but also furnish some interesting information about his immediate ancestors.¹
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¹ *Corpus*, No. 7, pp. 25 ff.
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According to the Kāzīpēṭa record, Bēta II’s grandfather, Bēta I, ‘churned the ocean of the army of the Chōḷa king and obtained the Lakshmī’ (of Victory). This assertion should be compared with the statement in the Pālampēṭa inscription of the time of Gaṇapati² that Rēcherla Brahma, the progenitor of Rēcherla Rudra, who in all probability was the commander of
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² *H.A.S.*, No. 3, I. The Pālampēṭa pillar inscription of the time of Gaṇapatidēva, dated in Śaka 1135 (A.D. 1213), attributes the conquest of Kāñchī to a Kākati monarch, the campaign being directed by his general, Brahma of the Rēcherla family (v. 11). The Kākati monarch alluded to here is in fact no other than Bēta I. The relationship between Kāṭa, the father of Kāma Chamūpati, and Brahma, the first known member of the Rēcherla family, is not made clear in this inscription. Kāma is said to have been the chief officer of Kākati Prōla, the opponent of Manthena Guṇḍa. This Prōla is evidently Prōla II. Hence it is reasonable to suppose that the difference in time between Rēcherla Brahma and his descendant Kāma corresponds to that between Bēta I and Prōla II. However, the Pillalamarri record (*Corpus*, No. 41, pp. 114 ff.) of the Rēcherla chief Nāma says that Muchcha was the father of Kāṭa and that he was born in the family of Bamma, evidently Brahma, who ‘having taken away the gate of the city of Kāñchī uprooted the tree of the dignity (*māna*) of the Chōḍa king in the play of the terrific battle’ (*yaḥ Kāmchinagari-kavaṭa-haraṇam kṛtvā prachand-āhava-krīḍas-Chōḍa-narādhipasya kṛtavān māna-drum-ōnmūlanam*. Ibid., v. 4). Muchcha is in fact much earlier in time than Kāṭa. He was probably Brahma’s grandson or his brother’s son. These Rēcherla chiefs served the Kākatīyas, very loyally from the time of Brahma onwards. In order to understand correctly the comparative dates of the Rēcherla chiefs and their Kākatīya overlords the pedigrees given overleaf may be helpful to the reader.
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From these pedigrees it would seem probable that Muchcha and his son Kāṭa were the commanders of Prōla I and his son Bēta II respectively. In this case Kākati Bēta and his commander, Bēta I’s army, ‘flung open, like a curtain, the doors of the city of Kāñchī’, and ‘promptly brought about the marriage of the Kākati monarch with the Goddess of Victory’. Neither the actual date of this victory nor the circumstances in which it was achieved, are known. Bēta I was an obscure petty chief in Telingāna, which was then included in the Western Chālukyan dominions. He thus obviously could not, on his own account and entirely by himself, have led an expedition all the way across the Eastern Chālukyan kingdom to Kāñchī, defeated the powerful Chōḷa emperor, and captured the city. It is, on the other hand, not unlikely that Bēta I and his general Brahma did in fact accompany their Western Chālukyan overlords during an expedition which the latter conducted against the Chōḷa kingdom. Now before the date of the Kāzīpēṭa inscription the Western Chālukyas invaded the Chōḷa kingdom only once and that happened during the reign of Āhavamalla Sōmēśvara I. The Chōḷa king Rājādhirāja I, taking advantage of Sōmēśvara’s expedition to Māḷava, made an attack on the latter’s capital, Kalyāṇi, and destroyed it by fire, in A.D. 1052, whereupon Sōmēśvara, as soon as he returned from Māḷava, sent a large army under Polakēśin, and devastated, in retaliation, the city of Kāñchī, the northern capital of the Chōḷa kingdom. Bēta and his general most probably participated in Polakēśin’s expedition and thereafter assumed credit for the success of the enterprise. Of the other events of Bēta’s rule nothing is known, and it appears to have come to an end soon after his return from the South.
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Bēta I was succeeded by his son Prōla who is said to have subdued a number of chiefs hostile to his overlord and to have acquired the hereditary rulership of Anumakoṇḍa-vishaya from Sōmēśvara I; to have ‘straightened’ the Chakrakūṭa-vishaya, that is Chakrakōṭ in Bastar, restored order after taking it from his enemies; to have subjugated the Koṅkaṇa-maṇḍala, put to flight Bhadraṅga; conquered the son (not named) of Dugga of Kāḍparti, driving him into the forests; and killed in battle Gonna, the chief of Purukūṭa. Prōla’s victory over these chiefs was perhaps his earliest achievement, after which by the acquisition of the hereditary rulership of the Anumakoṇḍa-vishaya he laid the foundation of a new principality which was destined to extend during the next century over the whole of the Āndhra country.
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Prōla I took an active part in the military campaigns of his sovereign and overlord Sōmēśvara I. According to Bilhaṇa, the author of the Vikramaṅkadēvacharita, Brahma or Bamma of the Rēcherla family, were the contemporaries and subordinates of the Western Chālukyan king, Trailōkyamalla Sōmēśvara I (A.D. 1044–68 or Śaka 966–90).
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| Rēcherla Chiefs | Kākatiya Monarchs |
| Brahma or Bamma, Commander of | Bēta I |
| Muchcha | Prōla I |
| Kāṭa | Bēta II |
| Kāma, Commander of | Prōla II |
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māṅkadēva-charitra, Vikramāditya VI, son of Āhavamalla Sōmēśvara I, while he was yet a prince, observing the unsettled state of affairs in the neighbouring Chōḷa kingdom, obtained the permission of his father and set out on an expedition of conquest. Vikramāditya advanced at first on the Koṅkan, which he brought under his control, and then passed through the Kēraḷa and Pāṇḍya countries; after this he attacked and captured Gaṅgakuṇḍa and Kāñchī, the two great cities of the Chōḷa kingdom, and then overcame Vēṅgī and Chakrakōṭa.¹ Prōla seems to have accompanied the Chāḷukyan army under Prince Vikramāditya to Koṅkan in A.D. 1066, and later assisted him in dislodging the Chōḷas from Chakrakōṭa and occupying the fort with its dependent territory. The identity of the Bhadraṅga whom Prōla put to flight is not easy to establish. Bhadraṅga in fact does not appear to be a personal designation, since no prince or chief of that name is known to have existed. It is not unlikely that it is the name of a place. And in fact there is a town named Bhadraṅga very near Bastar on the banks of the Indrāvatī, a tributary of the river Gōdāvarī. As Prōla I is said to have put Bhadraṅga to flight, this should probably be understood as meaning that he drove away the chief or the people of that place. Purukūṭa, in view of its similarity to Chakrakūṭa, must be looked for somewhere in the neighbourhood of Bastar. There is actually a town of the name of Parakot in its vicinity, which may perhaps be identical with Purukūṭa. Just as Chakrakūṭa became Chakrakōṭ, Purukūṭa might have become Purukōṭ and subsequently Parakot in local speech. Bhadraṅga and Purukūṭa appear to have been places of some importance in the Bastar State in ancient times. Prōla I evidently reduced them to subjection during the Western Chāḷukyan campaign against Chakrakōṭa. He drove away the people of Bhadraṅga from their town and put Gonna, the chief of Purukūṭa, to death. Kāḍparti, the headquarters of the chief Dugga, whose unnamed son Prōla I subdued, lay perhaps in the neighbourhood of Warangal; it is probably identical with the present village of that name in the modern Warangal tāluk of the same district.
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¹ Vikramāṅkadēva-charitra, 4, 11-18.
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Thus, in all the important campaigns of the Western Chāḷukya Sōmēśvara I and his son Vikramāditya, the Kākatīyas played a very definite part in helping them to win their victories. At first Bēta I and after him his son Prōla I remained firmly loyal to the Western Chāḷukyan standard, and thus won the affection and favour of their overlords. Delighted by the military ability and unswerving loyalty of Prōla I, the emperor Āhavamalla Sōmēśvara I granted him Anumakoṇḍa-vishaya as a permanent fief. Prōla I thus became the founder of the Kākatīya principality, which under his ambitious successors grew into a powerful kingdom embracing the whole of the country. Although he was engaged in various wars throughout his reign, Prōla I seems yet to have found time to bestow attention on the civil administration of the kingdom and to promote its economic prosperity. According to the inscriptions in the temple of Ekāmranātha at Kāñchī and Mōṭupalli of his grandson Gaṇapati, he constructed an irrigation tank of the name of Kēsari or Jagatikēsari in commemoration of one of his own birudas.¹ Like his father before him, Prōla I was a Śaiva by faith, having been a pupil of Rāmēśvara Paṇḍita, a well-known exponent of the Lākulīśvara-Āgama, on whom he bestowed the village of Vaijanampalli, making it a Śivapura.²
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¹ IA, xxi, 197 f.; EI, xii, 188 f.
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² Corpus, No. 12.
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Prōla I died about the year A.D. 1075 and was succeeded by his young son Bēta II. The most important event of the reign of this king was the outbreak of serious disturbances in his dominion, which brought the power of his family to a very low ebb. The circumstances in which this happened are not known. It is not unlikely that the outbreak was an aftermath of the civil war between Sōmēśvara II and Vikramāditya VI for the possession of the imperial throne; Bēta II probably supported the former, and on his defeat Vikramāditya either sent his armies to chastise him or instigated the chiefs who were his vassals to rise against him and overthrow his authority. It is significant that in the Hanumakoṇḍa inscription, dated Ś. 1001 (A.D. 1079-80), the title Tribhuvanamalla is not associated with the name of Bēta II, nor is there any reference in it to Tribhuvanamalla Vikramāditya, who by that time had succeeded in establishing himself firmly on the imperial throne. Bēta II, however, had powerful allies who stood by him in the hour of peril and helped him to overthrow his enemies. Foremost amongst these were Erra and Rēva, the heads respectively of the Viriyāla and the Vēma-Chōḷa families. The former, according to an undated epigraph at Gūḍūr, in the Warangal district, took the side of Poṭṭa-Bēta (i.e. Bēta II), put his enemies to death in battle, and established him firmly in the Koṟavi country;³ and the latter, according to an inscription dated A.D. 1120 at Māṭūru in the same district, offered protection to the kings of the Kākatī family, defeated their enemies, and preserved the integrity of their kingdom.⁴ However, notwithstanding the victories of his allies, Bēta II does not appear to have felt himself securely established in his dominion without the sanction of the emperor. Therefore, his minister Vaija-daṇḍādhīśa, accompanied by Kāmasāni, the able wife of the Viriyāla chief Erra, took him to the court of the emperor Vikramāditya at Kalyāṇi, and having there caused him to prostrate himself at the feet of the emperor, secured for him the government of the Sabbi-Thousand which probably included the Anumakoṇḍa and the Koṟavi districts, and thus preserved the integrity of the Kākatīya principality.⁵ This event must have taken place before A.D. 1090, since in the Kāzīpēṭa record dated in that year, Bēta is said to have made the gift registered therein as bestowed during the reign of Tribhuvanamalladēva, that is, Vikramāditya VI.⁶ The titles Tribhuvanamalla and Vikramachakrī which he thereafter assumed also indicate his submission to Vikramāditya. No information is available about the happenings in the subsequent years of his rule, except that he perhaps participated in the Mālaya and the Chōḷa wars of Vikramāditya.¹ The duration of his reign is not definitely known, but he appears to have succeeded his father about A.D. 1075, and to have died in or about A.D. 1090.
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³ Ibid., No. 24; Tel. Ins. Kāk., 55.
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⁴ Ibid., 54. Telingāna Inscriptions Revised (Unpublished), No. 47.
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⁵ Tel. Ins. Kāk., 55; EI, ix, 256, verse 3.
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⁶ Corpus, No. 7.
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¹ *Corpus*, No. 7.
Successors of Bēta II
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Bēta II appears to have been succeeded by his son Durganṛpati in or before A.D. 1090. He is represented by a single inscription at Kāzīpēṭa in the Warangal district, which, however, does not furnish any information of historical importance beyond the fact that he also, like his father, held the title Tribhuvanamalladēva.² Nothing is known about the duration of his reign or the events that happened in his time.
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² Ibid.
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Durga was succeeded by his brother Prōla II in or about A.D. 1117. Two inscriptions belonging to his reign which have recently come to light, state that he established the son of Gōkarṇa on his throne, defeated Mēḍarāja, conquered Polavāsadēśa (probably the territory of this chieftain), and bestowed it on Gaṅgarāja, who built a temple for the God Prasanna Kēśavadēva at Hanumakoṇḍa.³ These facts are not, however, mentioned in the Hanumakoṇḍa record of his son, Rudradēva, which describes his other achievements at some length. Prōla II, according to this record, captured Tailapa, the crest-jewel of the Chāḷukyas, but, impressed by his devout and amiable bearing, immediately released him; he also conquered Gōvindarāja, plundered the territory of Udaya, which he, however, restored to its owner; pursued Guṇḍa of Mantrakūṭa, who having been defeated in battle fled to his capital, where his conqueror had his head shaved and caused him to be branded on the breast with the symbol of the boar. Prōla also repelled Jagaddēva, who had laid siege to his capital Anumakoṇḍa.⁴ Before proceeding to consider the identity of the enemies of Prōla II and the circumstances in which he came into conflict with them, it may be noted that he was originally only a *maṇḍalika*, the vassal ruler of a small tract of country comprising at most the whole of the Warangal and parts of the Karimnagar districts in Teliṅgāṇa and owing allegiance to the Western Chāḷukyan emperor of Kalyāṇi. The enemies whom he is said to have vanquished were likewise feudatories of the same sovereign holding appanages in different parts of Teliṅgāṇa in the neighbourhood of Prōla’s territory.
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³ *JAHRS*, xxi, 105-6.
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⁴ *Corpus*, No. 3.
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The names of the son of Gōkarṇa and of the family to which he belonged are unfortunately not mentioned in Prōla’s inscriptions, but the name Gōkarṇa, which is peculiar to the Kandūr branch of the Telugu Chōḷa family, seems to indicate that the unnamed prince and his father belonged in fact to this family. An inscription found at Māmilla-palli and dated Ś. 1100 (A.D. 1178) states that it was set up during the reign of a king of the name of Bhīma, who was the elder brother of Gōkarṇa of the Solar family. Three generations of kings, viz. Gōkarṇa I, his son Udayāditya, and his grandsons Bhīma and Gōkarṇa II, are mentioned in this record.¹ It is not improbable that Gōkarṇa, the father of the prince whom Prōla II established on the throne, was the Gōkarṇa I of the Māmillapalli inscription. And indeed we know that a Gōkarṇadēva Chōḍa was in fact ruling at Pānugal in the Nalgonda district during the early years of Prōla II. For, on the occasion of a solar eclipse which took place on a Friday, Phālguna-bahula Amāvāsya of the year Śubhakṛt, corresponding to the Chālukya-Vikrama (a mistake for the Śaka) 1043 (Friday, 10 March, A.D. 1122), this ruler made a gift of land to some Brāhmans.² He was in all probability identical with the Gōkarṇa I of the Māmillapalli epigraph cited above. Gōkarṇa was, in fact, the last of the three sons of Toṇḍa and his queen Mailāmbikā, and was a younger brother of the Udayāditya and Bhīma mentioned in another inscription at Pānugal dated Ś. 1046 Krōdhi (A.D. 1124).³ Toṇḍa was a scion of the Ēruva branch of the Telugu Chōḷa family and a vassal of the Western Chālukyan king Tribhuvanamalla Vikramāditya VI, as is shown by a record of his queen Mailamadēvī (Mailāmbikā) at Dākshārāmam dated Ś. 1043—C.V. 46 (A.D. 1121).⁴ If the identification of the Gōkarṇa of Prōla II's inscriptions with the Gōkarṇa of the Māmillapalli inscription suggested be accepted, it will follow as a corollary from this that the name of Gōkarṇa's son whom Prōla II established on his throne was Udayāditya. He was probably identical with the Udaya or Chōḍōdaya mentioned in the Anumakoṇḍa and Gaṇapēśvaram inscriptions of Rudradēva and Gaṇapati respectively; for it is stated there that Prōla II pillaged his territory but subsequently restored it to him.⁵ Mēḍa, the ruler of Polavāsadēśa, was a powerful chief. Though he is said to have suffered a defeat at the hands of Prōla II and to have lost his kingdom as a consequence of this, he appears to have recovered it again; for he figures in the Anumakoṇḍa inscription among the enemies later subdued by Rudradēva. Taila, ‘the crest-jewel of the Chālukyas’, was the son of Vikramāditya VI. He is referred to as Kumāra or Yuvarāja Tailapadēva in a series of inscriptions ranging from A.D. 1110 to 1125; he was evidently at that time ruling over Kandūru-nāḍu and the region in its neighbourhood.⁶ Gōvindarāja is generally taken to have been the same person as the nephew, a sister's son, of Vikramāditya VI's famous Brāhman general Anantapāla Daṇḍanāyaka, who is mentioned in several inscriptions in Teliṅgāṇa and coastal Āndhra. He was a valiant soldier who together with his brother Lakshmaṇa rendered valuable assistance to his uncle in the subjugation of Veṅgī and other maritime dis tricts in A.D. 1118; he was ruling over Koṇḍapalli and its dependent territories in A.D. 1126.¹ It is, however, more likely that Prōla's opponent was not this Gōvindarāja but his namesake, the son of Bāgi Mādimayya Nāyaka, who was associated with Lakshmaṇa Daṇḍanāyaka, son of Mākāmbā, in the government of Veṅgī in A.D. 1133, under Bhūlōkamalla Sōmēśvara III.² Jagaddēva was, no doubt, the Paramāra prince of that name who governed Kollipāka Seven-Thousand under Vikramāditya VI and Sōmēśvara III.³ The antecedents of Guṇḍa of Mantrakūṭa are not known. He was also in all probability a feudatory of the Chāḷukyas of Kalyāṇi.
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¹ M. Ramakrishna Kavi, *Lithic Records in the Hyderabad State*.
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² *Corpus*, No. 32.
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³ *Tel. Inr. Misc.*, 18. The text is badly deciphered and edited. The genealogy of the family given in the record is as follows:
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⁴ *SII*, iv, 1216; *AR*, 335 of 1893.
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⁵ *EI*, iii, p. 89.
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⁶ *Telingāna Inscriptions Revised* (Unpublished), Nos. 44 (Alavānipalle), 45 (Āvañcha), 53 (Nek-koṇḍa), 59 (Pānugallu (Nalgonda)).
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¹ EI, xii, p. 261.
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² SII, iv, 1094; AR, 243-B of 1893.
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³ Tel. Ins., Ch., 13, 42.
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... rppēri, the crest-jewel of kings m. Bedaṃgā | Mailāmbikā m. King Toṇḍa | Udayāditya | Bhīma | Gōkarṇa
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Neither the period nor the circumstances in which Prōla II waged war successfully on these chiefs are definitely known. It is not unlikely that he came into conflict with them when he attempted to carve out a kingdom for himself at their expense, taking advantage of the confusion prevalent in the Western Chāḷukyan dominion subsequent to their defeat in, and expulsion from, the coastal Āndhra country in A.D. 1135.
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The defeat in the maritime Āndhra coupled with the death of Sōmēśvara III a few years later in A.D. 1139 let loose the latent forces of disintegration and the Chāḷukyan empire began to fall rapidly to pieces. In the general scramble for power, the feudatories looked after their own interests and each attempted to grab as much territory as he could lay hands upon. It must have been about this time that Prōla II rose to prominence, and throwing off the imperial yoke asserted his independence. His aggressions would not have been possible earlier, since at that time the imperial army in Veṅgī and other places in the neighbourhood would have easily crushed him.
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The extent of the territory acquired by him as a result of the wars described above cannot now be definitely ascertained. However, it can be confidently asserted that he made himself master of the districts lying between the rivers Gōdāvarī and Kṛishṇā. With the defeat of Guṇḍa, Manthena on the Gōdāvarī and its dependent territory must have passed into his hands; and the Telugu Chōḷa Udayāditya of Nalgoṇḍa-Pānugal, to whom after conquest he restored the kingdom, must have acknowledged his supremacy. In the absence of evidence, it is not possible to state how far his authority extended in the west. But it is certain that the victorious career of Prōla II met with a rude check. He invaded Veṅgī towards the close of his reign, when he appears to have met his death in battle with the forces of a confederacy of the local chiefs who opposed his advance.
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The Dākshārāmam inscription of Kōṭa Sūramamahādēvī, dated Śaka 1091 (A.D. 1169), mentions Kākati-Prōla-nirdahana as one of the titles of her husband.
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Kōṭa Chōḍayarāja, a fact which indicates that Kākati Prōla, evidently Prōla II, was slain by him.¹ Like Kōṭa Chōḍayarāja, Manma Satya and Mallidēva, the Haihaya chiefs of the Kōna country, and Mahādēvarāja, the Sūryavaṁśa chief of the Malaya country, also seem to have borne titles of the same kind. In the Piṭhāpuram Pillar inscription of the Haihaya chiefs mentioned above, dated Śaka 1117 (A.D. 1195),² the former is spoken of as *Prōḍa-kṣitipāla-mauḷi-makuṭ-ālaṁkāra-siṁhāsanaḥ*, that is ‘one whose throne was adorned by the crown on the head of Prōḍa-kṣitipāla’. The editor of the inscription, Dr. E. Hultzsch, wrongly corrected Prōḍa to *Prauḍha* and construed it as an adjective qualifying *kṣitipāla*. But the correction is hardly necessary. Prōḍa is obviously a variant of the name Prōla. Moreover, Dr. Hultzsch’s correction does not quite suit the context. Kings are usually described as *vīras* and *śūras*, and seldom as *prauḍhas*. Therefore the title in the Piṭhāpuram Pillar inscription may be taken as referring to the defeat of Kākati Prōla at the hands of the Haihaya chiefs, Manma Satya and Mallidēva. Mahādēvarāja, the Malaya chief of the Solar race, and a vassal of the later Eastern Chāḷukyan ruler Malla Viṣṇuvardhana of the Bēta-Vijayāditya line, who came to the throne while he was still a boy, bears a similar title, *Prōḍ-āri-baḍab-ānalaḥ*, ‘the submarine fire to the enemy, viz. Prōḍa’, in the Madras Museum plates of his overlord.³ Here also Prōḍa cannot be corrected to Prauḍha, for *Prauḍh-āri* would make little or no sense. It is better to take Prōḍa as a personal name denoting a particular king. This view is supported by the evidence of the Ēkāmranātha inscription of Gaṇapatidēva, in which his ancestor Prōḍarāja is said to have constructed a tank called *Jagatīkēsari*.⁴ Now the construction of a tank called *Jagatīkēsari* is ascribed in Gaṇapatidēva’s Mōṭupalli inscription to Prōla II. It is therefore evident that Prōḍa and Prōla are identical. If, then, the Prōḍa mentioned in the Piṭhāpuram Pillar inscription and the Madras Museum Plates cited above is identical with Prōla II, it seems certain that he must have invaded the Vēṅgī country some time about A.D. 1150, and that he was opposed by the Kōṭa chief of Amarāvatī, the Haihaya chiefs of Kōna-maṇḍala, and the Solar chiefs of Malaya, who were the vassals of the Eastern Chāḷukyas of Vēṅgī. He appears to have been defeated and slain during the course of this invasion.
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¹ SII, iv, 1242; AR, 351 of 1893.
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² EI, iv, p. 91.
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³ Cp. No. 10 of 1916-17.
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⁴ IA, xxi, 197.
v2.c15.s1.t1.26
The reign of Prōla II marks an important stage in the history of the Kākatiyas. He was a mighty warrior; he transformed the feudal fief which he inherited into a sovereign state by his military skill. Though he began his career as a small *māṇḍalika* in the eastern marches of the Chāḷukyan empire, he managed, by taking advantage of the unsettled state of affairs which prevailed in the territories after the death of Sōmēśvara III, to throw off the imperial yoke and to carve out for himself an independent kingdom which was destined to grow under his successors into a powerful empire embracing the whole of the Āndhra country.