The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c15.s2.t5.61

Language: English

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*Pratāparudra’s Family.* The available information about Pratāparudra’s family is scanty. None of his queens is mentioned in any of the numerous inscriptions and literary works of his time. The *Pratāpacharitra*, a late legendary account of the Kākatīya kings, no doubt refers twice to his chief queen Viśālākshi;⁴ but this document is so encrusted with legend that no real reliance can be placed on its evidence. The *Krīḍābhirāmam*, a fifteenth-century Telugu rendering of the Sanskrit *Vidhinaṭakam*, *Prē-mābhirāmam* of Rāvipāṭi Tripurāntaka by Vallabharāya of Vinukoṇḍa, speaks of the beautiful and highly cultured hetaera, Māchaladēvī of Warangal, as his favourite mistress.⁵ Although persons alleged to have been his sons are referred to in the inscriptions and in the historical and quasi-historical works, he appears actually to have died without leaving issue. Of the various persons mentioned as his descendants Juṭṭaya-leṅka Goṅkā Reḍḍi, who is described in an undated inscription of his time found at Upparappalli in the Proddatur *tāluk* of the Cuddapah district as ‘his [Pratāparudra’s] dear son’, deserves notice first.⁶ Juṭṭaya-leṅka Goṅkā Reḍḍi cannot possibly have been the son of Pratāparudra for, as his name clearly indicates, his father was a person called Juṭṭaya who was a *leṅka* by profession.

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Juṭṭaya-leṅka Goṅkā Reḍḍi is a compound word consisting of two names, Juṭṭaya-leṅka and Goṅkā Reḍḍi, signifying that the persons whose names are thus joined together are related to each other as father and son respectively, and obviously Goṅkā Reḍḍi could not have been the son both of Juṭṭaya-leṅka and of Pratāparudra. The truth of the matter is that Gonka Reḍḍi, like his father Juṭṭaya and his younger brother Rudraya, who is mentioned in an epigraph at Chanduvāyi in the Siddhavatam *tāluk* of the Cuddapah district,¹ was a member of the order of the *leṅkas*; and by custom, like all the other persons belonging to this brotherhood, he is referred to in the inscription as a son of the king. The historian Firishta introduces a son of Pratāparudra called Kishan Nāyak, who headed a rebellion against the Musalmāns in Teliṅgāṇa in 1336 A.D., and having expelled them made himself master of the country.² The name Kishan is the result of a scribal error. In actual fact, there never was any person bearing the name of Kishan Nāyak who played any such part at that time as is attributed to him by Firishta. On a careful examination of the text of available manuscripts of Firishta and a comparison of these with the accounts found in other Muslim histories, the real name of the author of the rebellion against the Musalmāns in A.D. 1336 is found to have been Kāpaya Nāyaka;

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and a study of the inscriptions left by him reveals the fact that he was a member of the Musunūri family and was in no way related to the Kākatīyas. How Firishta came to regard Kāpaya as the son of Pratāparudra cannot be ascertained without further resources than we at present possess. His statement that Pratāparudra had a son of the name of Kishan Nāyak must therefore be discarded as completely unhistorical. The *Pratāpacharitra* states that Pratāparudra was succeeded by his son Virabhadra. On the death of Pratāparudra, ‘it is said that Annamadēva performed his funeral rites and himself renounced the world. In accordance with the wishes of his brother’s son Virabhadra, he had him crowned king and retired with Virūpāksha to the Vindhya hills in the north-east.’³ There is absolutely no evidence to show that Pratāparudra either had a son called Virabhadra or that such a person was crowned king of the country on the death of his father. The author of the chronicle seems to have confounded Pratāparudra with the Gajapati king of that name who ruled over Coastal Āndhra and Teliṅgāṇa during the first half of the sixteenth century. This latter had indeed a son called Virabhadra, a celebrated warrior, who held sway over Koṇḍavīḍu-*daṇḍapatha* as the governor of that territory under his father. It is not improbable that the author of the *Pratāpacharitra* had this person in mind when he spoke of Virabhadra as being the son of Pratāparudra.

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Although Pratāparudra seems to have had no children, he certainly had a brother named Annamadēva, who became the progenitor of the later rulers of Bastar in the present Madhya Pradesh.¹