The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c15.s2.t4.14

v2.c15.s2.t4.14

The external dangers were not less threatening. Some of the rulers of the neighbouring states seized the Kākatiya territory in the neighbourhood of their frontiers and established themselves there permanently. The Kaliṅga Gajapati Narasiṁha I, it may be remembered, had suffered a defeat in or before A.D. 1157-8 at the hands of Gaṇapati in a battle fought on the bank of the Gōdāvarī and had had to retreat into his own country, abandoning his conquests on the bank of the river. The Kākatīya authority lasted there until Ś. 1184 (A.D. 1262), as is clearly proved by Kōpperuñjiṅga’s Dākshārāmam inscriptions of that date, in which he acknowledges the supremacy of Gaṇapatidēva.¹ No trace of the Kākatīya rule is found in any documentary evidence from the Gōdāvarī valley until A.D. 1278-9, when a certain Kāra-paṛti Sūraya Reḍḍi, a servant of Kākatīya Rudradēva Mahārāja, who is identical with Rudrāmbā, made a gift to the temple of the god Bhīmēśvara of Dākshārāmam.² It is obvious that the Kākatīya power must have suffered an eclipse in the Gōdāvarī valley during the interval. What happened there during this period is not definitely known. It is not unlikely that the Gajapati Narasiṁha I of Kaliṅga, taking advantage of the then unsettled state of the Kākatīya dominions, led his forces into the Gōdāvarī delta with the object of recovering his lost possessions. A short incomplete epigraph at Dākshārāmam dated Ś. 1184 (A.D. 1262) mentions a Nārasiṁga Narādhipa who may well be in fact the same person.³