Administration of the Kakatiya kingdom

Mahamandalesvara, great lord of a province, was the only title that the Kakatiya kings kept throughout, as Parabrahma Sastry notes. Sastry argues that the Kakatiyas never claimed imperial status. According to Sastry, the kings left their subordinate chiefs free in almost every matter except military service. Sastry calls this a decentralised kind of monarchy, and Telangana – Land and People repeats his view. The same book also writes that Rudra Deva turned the kingdom into an empire. Cynthia Talbot describes the Kakatiya state as a military and political coalition. In Talbot's view, the coalition drew many local warrior-peasants into its network and created a new ruling group of Telugu warriors.

Several inscriptions give the kings grander titles than Sastry's description suggests. Two records at Dichchakunta, one of them dated 1217, call Ganapati Deva Maharajadhiraja, king of great kings. An inscription of 1228 at Girmajipet in Warangal calls Ganapati Deva the seventh emperor. An inscription at Togarrayi gives Mahadeva the title praudha-pratapa-chakravarti, which contains the word chakravarti, emperor. Sastry himself quotes two more records of this kind. The Pakhal inscription calls Ganapati Deva a chakravartin. The Terala inscription of 1292 calls Prataparudra narendra-chakravarti, emperor among kings.

The throne passed within the Kakatiya family. Rudra Deva had no son, and his younger brother Mahadeva succeeded him. Mahadeva's son Ganapati Deva followed. According to Sastry, Ganapati Deva had no son, only two daughters. Ganapati named his daughter Rudrama Devi as heir. Rudrama Devi ruled as co-regent from about 1259-60 under the name Rudradeva Maharaja. A Durgi inscription of 1269 calls her pattoddhati. Sastry reads this word as the chosen heir rather than the crowned queen. The editors of South Indian Inscriptions X mark the word with a query.

The Pratapacaritra, a later Telugu chronicle, says that Harihara and Murarideva, sons of Ganapati by other queens, rebelled against Rudrama Devi. Sastry notes that no other source names these princes, so the story remains a tradition. Sastry still thinks that some members of the royal family may have revolted against the queen.

Rudrama Devi had no son. Her grandson Prataparudra, son of her daughter Mummadamma, took part in her wars and government before he became king. Sastry places the accession of Prataparudra in 1289. Sastry reads the Chandupatla inscription of 25 November 1289 as evidence that Rudrama Devi had died by then, and Telangana – Land and People agrees. The 1903 edition of Henry Yule's Marco Polo, revised by Henri Cordier after Yule's death in 1889, dates the handover of power from Rudrama Devi to Prataparudra to 1292 or 1295. Yashoda Devi gives the reign of Rudrama Devi as 1261 to 1296.

The court included poets and scholars as well as ministers and generals. Vidyanatha wrote the Prataparudriya, a Sanskrit work on poetics, in praise of Prataparudra, and Sastry calls Vidyanatha the king's court poet. Jaya, the commander of Ganapati Deva's elephants, wrote the Nritta Ratnavali, a Sanskrit work on dance. A Telugu work on statecraft, the Nitisara, survives only in verses quoted in a later collection. Sastry credits the Nitisara to Rudra Deva in one passage and to Prataparudra in another.

The highest officers were the mahapradhanas, or chief ministers. Sastry writes that there were only a few of them. Below them came officers called pradhani, preggada, amatya and mantri. Sastry admits that the inscriptions do not show how these ranks differed. The officers were usually paid with vrittis, which were villages or plots of land held in return for service. According to Sastry, the holders had no permanent right over these lands. Telangana – Land and People gives the same ranks and the same view of service grants.

The government was divided into seventy-two niyogas, or departments. A high officer called the bahattara-niyogadhipati, head of the seventy-two niyogas, supervised them. The Kayastha chief Gangaya-sahini held this title under Ganapati Deva, and Induluri Gannaya and Pomkala Mallaya-preggada held it later. An inscription at Aluvalapadu of 1272 calls the Kayastha chief Tripurari the director of seventy-two offices. Sastry is not certain whether the title carried real power or was only an honour. Sastry assumes that at least the mahapradhanas held such power over the seventy-two branches.

Other officers appear in particular inscriptions. Siviri Annaya held the post of sarvadhikari at Kolavennu in 1247, and some scholars take the sarvadhikari to be the king's general agent. The tantrapala was a military officer, and Sastry groups the post with the royal bodyguard. Inscriptions at Kopparam of 1218 and 1222 name Prola-rautu as the tantrapala of Ganapati Deva. The padalu was a junior officer in the army. Sastry describes the srikarana as an officer of high rank. Telangana – Land and People calls the srikarana an officer who kept financial records. Karanams kept the records of a village, a sthala or the tolls.

Several officers served in the palace. The adapamu carried the king's betel bag, and the alavattamu carried the royal fan. The kottaruvu kept the palace stores, the angarakshaka was the royal bodyguard, and the nagari-srivakili kept the palace gate. The nagari-adhikari managed the palace, and the sribhandari was the chief treasurer in the capital. The talari was usually a village watchman, but Sastry notes that the talari of the palace was a high officer. Telangana – Land and People gives the same list of officers.

Some ministers began in modest posts. Gangadhara, a brahmana minister, entered the service of Prola II as a boy and first managed the town of Anumakonda. Gangadhara's Karimnagar inscription states that he later served Rudra Deva as minister and as governor of Sabbi-mandala. Sastry dates this inscription to 1172. Malyala Kata, a commander of Rudra Deva, helped to capture Dharanikota and was later made a minister. The Kondaparthi inscription of 1203 also states that Rudra Deva made Kata his minister.

A nayaka was a military commander in the king's service. Under the nayamkara system, the king gave a nayaka a nayamkara, a grant of land for military service, in place of a salary. Sastry cites the Nitisara for this rule. The nayaka kept a fixed number of elephants, horses and foot soldiers for the king's wars. The size of this force depended on the grant of the nayaka. Sastry adds that the holder also paid the usual tribute. Sastry holds that Rudrama Devi introduced the system and that Prataparudra organised it fully. Telangana – Land and People repeats this description.

Inscriptions of Prataparudra's reign name several nayamkara holdings. In 1314, Erraya-lenka, the gatekeeper of the palace, held a nayamkara of twenty-two villages around Penumuli. Mayideva-lenka held the Konduru sthala of eighteen villages, and four lenkas held Kopparam together. An inscription at Mellacheruvu, dated 1311 or 1312, also uses the word nayamkara for a local holding in Telangana. In 1317, Devari Nayaka still needed the king's consent before he gave Salakalavidu, a village in his nayamkara, to a temple.

Lenka was a title of warriors and officers under Prataparudra. Lakshmi Ranjanam explains the lenkas as the leaders of the king's bodyguard. Ranjanam notes that Pochu-lenka carried the king's betel bag and that Peddaya-lenka carried the royal fan. Somaya-lenka rose to be commander-in-chief, and other lenkas held nayamkaras like the nayakas. Sastry notes that the lenkas, like the nayakas, came from several communities, including reddis. Gandhi Bhaskar Patrudu Lenka, who collected the inscriptions of the lenkas, describes the lenkas as warriors known for loyalty and sacrifice.

A later tradition links the nayakas with the bastions of the Warangal fort. The Prataparudra Caritramu is a Telugu chronicle of the sixteenth century. The chronicle says that Prataparudra gave each of 77 bastions to a nayaka of the 77 Padmanayaka clans. In Talbot's translation, the chronicle adds that the king divided one portion of his kingdom among these nayakas. Sastry reads the chronicle as giving the nayakas one fourth of the kingdom. Sastry gives the number of bastions as seventy-two in one passage, seventy-five in another and seventy-seven in a third. Sastry's 1975 thesis gives seventy bastions for the outer fort, citing the same chronicle.

Sastry's summary of the chronicle calls these nayakas Velamas, but Sastry doubts that all of them were Velamas. Sastry notes that the inscriptions name nayakas of other communities. Yashoda Devi writes that Prataparudra appointed only Padmanayaka, or Velama, nayakas. Cynthia Talbot points out that the chronicle itself never uses the name Velama. Talbot argues that the Padmanayaka identity appeared only two or more centuries after 1323. Telangana – Land and People calls the claim of seventy-seven Velama nayakas a boastful exaggeration. In another passage, the same book writes that Prataparudra gave the bastions mainly to Padmanayaka, or Velama, nayakas. This tradition should not be confused with the seventy-two niyogas, or departments, named in the inscriptions.

The rajya, or kingdom, was divided into nadus, which were districts or provinces. A Srisailam inscription of 1313 names nadus such as Kamma-nadu, Pallinadu, Pakanadu, Renadu and Kandurunadu. Other well-known divisions were Venginadu, Velanadu, Natavadi and Kona-mandala. Some regions were called sima, another word for a territory, such as Sakali-sima and Palnadu-sima. An amatya or a preggada usually governed a nadu. Telangana – Land and People gives the same divisions.

Each nadu was divided into sthalas, groups of villages with one chief village. Sastry estimates that a sthala usually had about twenty villages or fewer. The Pedakonduru sthala had eighteen villages and the Mantru sthala had twelve, but the Gurindala sthala is said to have had sixty. The capital towns of Anumakonda, Mattewada and Orugallu together formed a single sthala.

Each sthala had a sthala-karanam, who kept its records, a sthala-sumkari, who collected its tolls, and a sthala-tirpari, who assessed its dues. The village was the smallest unit of government. Village officers called ayagars ran the village. Sastry names the talari or watchman and the nirukattu, who shared out tank water, among the ayagars. Sastry compares the ayagars with the karanams and the tirparis. Each ayagar held some land as a vritti and received a share of grain, called mera, from the cultivators.

Village leaders appear in the inscriptions as prabhu, gauda or reddi. The Sanigaram records name such leaders giving their consent to gifts. In 1051, Naranayya, son of Beta I's minister Vaijaraja, endowed the Duddhamalla Jinalaya after obtaining the consent of the local gamundas Muppadayya and Punniraddi. In 1053, Prola I made his gifts after informing the local gavundas. Prola I also gave wet land with the consent of Kateraddi and others of Bezavanka. Parabrahma Sastry also writes that Prola I made a gift there with the permission of the village prabhu, Nagaraja. Cynthia Talbot treats the words reddi and setti in this period as open occupational groups rather than closed castes.

Villages also had assemblies. Inscriptions speak of the ashtadasa-praja, the eighteen groups of people, and of samayas, which were corporate bodies of a community, a village or a sthala. Brahmana residents formed a body called the mahajanas. In Sastry's reading of an inscription of 1292 near Inkirala, a lenka named Ellu-rautu politely addressed the assemblies of three villages. Sastry thinks that Ellu-rautu probably sought a gift for a temple. In the same reading, the assemblies ordered a levy on wet land. Sastry concludes that such assemblies had more power in village matters than the local chief.

Sastry describes the dharmasastras, the Sanskrit law books, as the basic law of the kingdom. Sastry quotes the Narada and Yajnavalkya law books, which say that the dharmasastra prevails when it conflicts with the king's policy, or rajaniti. Telangana – Land and People gives the same rule. Sastry found no permanent courts. Learned officers called pradvivakas, experts in law, stayed in the capital to advise the king.

Most disputes were settled by temporary local bodies of mahajanas and elders, with one or two royal officers present. Each body dissolved once its case was over. Sastry classifies these bodies by the scheme of the Rajaniti Ratnakara, a Sanskrit law book, which distinguishes courts in the capital and in the villages. The same book distinguishes courts presided over by ministers from courts in which the king gave the decision himself.

An inscription at Duggirala records a boundary dispute of 1214. The villagers of Duggirala, Ivani and Moramapundi took the dispute to Ganapati Deva, who sent his ministers Mallaparaju and Rudraparaju. In Sastry's reading, the mahajanas chose a man named Saraparaju to walk the old boundary behind the boundary watchman. Stones were then set up along the line. Sastry suggests that Saraparaju was probably the karanam. Telangana – Land and People calls Saraparaju the watchman himself and states that pillars were set up at fourteen places.

Copper plates from Karimnagar district record a dispute of December 1246 over a canal called Gonugu-kaluva. Ganapati Deva sent Manchiraja, a minister of Jayapa Nayaka, who heard the elders of the neighbouring villages beside the canal. Manchiraja then reported to the king at Orugallu. The king gave his decision in the presence of the regional governor, and two officers confirmed it after a second inquiry. The decision gave the canal to the village of Chamanapalli. Telangana – Land and People describes the same case.

Corporate bodies could also punish their own members. The weavers of Orugallu threatened defaulters with exclusion from their samaya in 1228. An Umamahesvaram inscription of 1320 warns that both the king and the samaya would punish anyone who broke the order of the local Saiva body.

The king kept his own army in addition to the troops of the nayakas. Sastry describes four arms of the army: chariots, elephants, cavalry and foot soldiers. The commanders of elephants, horses and foot soldiers were called gaja-sahini, asva-sahini and senadhipati. According to the chronicles cited by Sastry, Prataparudra had 100 elephants, 20,000 horses and 900,000 foot soldiers. Sastry's 1975 thesis and one passage of Telangana – Land and People describe the 900,000 men as archers.

A verse often quoted calls Prataparudra the lord of nine lakh archers. Sastry calls the phrase a meaningful boast. Telangana – Land and People estimates the population of present Telangana in this period at about sixteen lakh. The authors of that book argue that such a population could not have supplied nine lakh archers.

The kings often led their armies in person. The sakala-senadhipati, or commander-in-chief, ranked next to the king. Somayajula Rudradeva, Adidamu Mallu and Somaya-lenka held this post under Prataparudra. According to an unpublished inscription cited by Sastry, Ganapati Deva brought the Kayastha chief Gangaya-sahini from north India to train his cavalry. Jaya of the Ayya family commanded Ganapati's elephants.

Ordinary soldiers, called bantus, received vrittis instead of pay, and commanders were often posted as governors of nadus. Soldiers could also act as corporate bodies. The ekkatis, or warriors, of Akunuru built a temple named after Rudra Deva, and the king endowed it on his visit in 1172. At Maktal in 1321, the leaders of the horse troopers and the foot soldiers made a grant with the consent of the village samayas.

According to Sastry, Rudra Deva began a new capital at Orugallu, about five kilometres from Anumakonda, and Ganapati Deva completed its walls. Telangana – Land and People states instead that Rudra Deva completed the stone fort. Sastry describes three walls. The outer wall was of mud and enclosed several villages. The middle wall was a high earthen wall with a moat and four gates. The inner wall was of stone and had its own moat. In another passage, Sastry writes that Ganapati Deva built two forts, one of stone and one of mud.

Telangana – Land and People names hill forts built by subordinate chiefs, such as Panugal, Konduru, Bhuvanagiri and Devarakonda. According to a later family tradition reported by Talbot, the Recherla chief Anapota Nayaka founded the forts of Devarakonda and Rachakonda after the Kakatiya period. The Warangal fort has its own page on this site.

Many families served the Kakatiyas as subordinate rulers and generals. The Recherla family commanded Kakatiya armies for several generations. The Palampet inscription of 1213 records that Recherla Rudra, a general of Ganapati Deva, built the Ramappa temple and its tank. Sastry credits Rudra with saving the kingdom during the troubles at Ganapati's accession, and Ganapati made Rudra a mandalika, a ruling chief. The Dichchakunta records of Ganapati Deva's reign also call Rudrireddi a mandalika. Sastry distinguishes this family from the later Recherla Velama chiefs.

Sastry counts the Viriyala family among the earliest allies of the Kakatiyas. In Sastry's reading, the Guduru inscription of 1124 says that Kamavasani, wife of Viriyala Erra, helped Beta I to obtain a fief, probably Anumakonda. Telangana – Land and People gives a similar reading and calls Beta I the nephew of Kamavasani. The Katakuru inscription of 1202 traces the family line. Viriyala Sura issued the Kotagiri copper plates of 1273 under Rudrama Devi. Sastry notes that only a few subordinates had the right to issue copper-plate grants.

The Malyala family claimed descent from Durjaya, as the Kakatiyas did. The Kondaparthi inscription of 1203 says that Malyala Chaunda commanded the army of Ganapati Deva. Chaunda captured Divi, the island stronghold of the Velanati chief Prithvisvara, and gave its treasure to the king. A Bothpur inscription of 1259 records a tank, a canal and two temples built by Malyala Gunda. Sastry thinks that Gunda probably belonged to the same family.

Sastry considers the Kayastha chiefs the most powerful subordinates. Sastry writes in one passage that they are believed to come from western India. In another passage, Sastry writes that Ganapati Deva brought Gangaya-sahini from north India. Gangaya-sahini ruled from Panugallu in Nalgonda district to the Marjavadi region in Cuddapah district. A Durgi inscription of 1251 and a Nalgonda inscription of 1253 support this extent. Ambadeva of this family rebelled against Rudrama Devi and proclaimed independence in 1290. According to Sastry, Prataparudra recovered the lost regions within about eight years.

Other subordinate families included the Cheraku chiefs of the Achchampet hills, the Kota chiefs of Dharanikota, the Natavadi chiefs and the Induluri family of ministers. The Kakatiyas tied several of these families to the throne by marriage. Ganapati Deva's daughter Ganapamba married a Kota chief. Mahadeva's daughters Mailama and Kundama married into the Natavadi family.