The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c15.s3.t9.9.2

v2.c15.s3.t9.9.2

In the prologue and the colophons of the poem it is, however, stated that it is the composition of a certain Buddharāja who (in the prologue of his poem) traces his descent through Viṭṭhala, Buddha, and Rudra, his father and grandfather and an unnamed great grandfather respectively, to Kāṭa of the Gōna family. Though several chieftains of this family figure in the inscriptions of the Kākatīya monarchs as their feudatories and subordinates, very little is really known about Buddharāja and his ancestors. It is perhaps not unlikely that the Gōna Kāṭa, one of the ministers of Gaṇapatidēva who is mentioned in an epigraph at Kāñchī dated in the 5th regnal year (? A.D. 1255) of Allun Tikka Mahārāja Gaṇḍagōpāladēva,² is identical with our Gōna Kāṭa; and that Gōna Buddhaya, who is said in an inscription dated Ś. 1198 Dhātri (A.D. 1277) at Bōthpūr in the Mahboobnagar District to have been the father of Malyāla Guṇḍa's wife Kuppāmbikā,³ was in fact one of the two Buddharājas of the *Ranganātha-Rāmāyaṇam*. However this may be, there can be no doubt that the poem is a genuine product of the Kākatīya period, and the time of its composition may be assigned roughly to the middle of the fourteenth century A.D. The *Ranganātha-Rāmāyaṇam* is the greatest of the Telugu *dvipada-kāvyas* and though it follows fairly closely the story of the *Rāmāyaṇa* as narrated by Vālmiki, it includes some episodes which find no place in his great epic. Buddharāja is indeed a great poet.