The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c15.s2.t4.28

Language: English

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The most serious danger which threatened to subvert the Kākatīya monarchy came, however, from the west. The Sēuṇa Mahādēva who succeeded his cousin Kṛṣṇa in A.D. 1260 appears to have invaded the Kākatīya kingdom soon after his accession to the throne. In some of his inscriptions Mahādēva is said to have been ‘the uprooter of the stalk of the lotus of the head of Tilliṅgarāya’; he is also said to have ‘blown away like a tempestuous wind the heap of cotton, viz. the ruler of the Tilliṅga country’, and to have ‘captured in battle the elephants, and the five musical instruments of the ruler of Tilliṅga’; but to have left that ruler Rudrama free, ‘because of his reluctance to kill a woman’.⁶ These statements cannot possibly be accepted at their face value since they are clearly one-sided and, to say the least, highly exaggerated. In the first place, Mahādēva never in fact killed any ruler of the Tilliṅga country, as his title *Teluṅgarāya-śiraḥ-kamala-mūlōtpāṭana* appears to suggest; for Rudrāmbā, his contemporary on the Āndhra throne, actually survived him for several years. The title was, as a matter of fact, hereditary; it had its origin in Jaitugi I’s victory over Kākatī Rudra in A.D. 1196; and it was borne by at least one Sēuṇa king before Mahādēva ever came to the throne.⁷ His invasion of the Kākatīya kingdom was, however, a fact;

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it was an attack which, though successful at first, seems to have ended, entirely contrary to the statement in the Sēuṇa records, in utter failure; for according to the *Pratāpa-* charitra Mahādēvarāja did indeed invade the Kākatīya kingdom and laid siege to the capital, Warangal; but Queen Rudrāmbā fought him valiantly for fifteen days during which she destroyed three lakhs of the Sēuṇa infantry and a lakh of cavalry. In the end she completely defeated him in a battle fought under the walls of the fort and put him to flight, pursuing the retreating Sēuṇa forces up to the walls of their capital Dēvagiri. Unable to oppose her advance, Mahādēva sued for peace and, agreeing to pay a crore of gold coins as war indemnity, he concluded a treaty with her. Rudrāmbā distributed the money thus obtained among the commanders of her army, and after setting up a pillar of victory returned to her own kingdom.¹ This account of the Sēuṇa invasion seems at any rate to embody substantial elements of fact. The vast numbers of Sēuṇa infantry and cavalry said to have been slain by Rudrāmbā in the battle may doubtless be dismissed as exaggeration; but the epigraphic and numismatic evidence available bears witness to the essentially authentic character of the narrative of the Pratāpacharitra. Two interesting facts so far ignored by scholars may be taken into consideration in this context. An inscription found at Pānugal in the Nalgonda district of the old Hyderabad State and dated Ś. 1189 (A.D.

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1267) registers a gift of land to the temple of the Chhāyā-Sōmanātha of that place by Śārṅgapāṇidēva, son of the Sēuṇa king, Siṅghaṇa, a subordinate of Kākatīya Manuma-Rudradēva, who is Rudrāmbā.² We also learn from another epigraph at Hire-Kōgilūr in the Channagiri tāluk of the Shimoga district of the Mysore State dated Ś. 1190 (A.D. 1268) that this Śārṅgapāṇidēva was the father of Mahādēva.³ The fact that Śārṅgapāṇidēva, the father of Mahādēva, was compelled to accept service under Rudrāmbā and enrol himself as one of her vassals clearly indicates that the Sēuṇa king must have suffered a defeat, and thus the account in the Pratāpacharitra is confirmed. Evidently Śārṅgapāṇidēva, who had probably seized the fort of Pānugal during the invasion, was unwilling to surrender it and return to his native country even after the defeat and subsequent retreat of his son. Having realized that under these circumstances it would be impossible for him to exercise independent authority there, he appears to have decided to acknowledge the supremacy of the Kākatīya queen and to pay homage to her as one of her vassals in order to retain the fort in his possession.