What an inscription says

The Kakatiya period left two kinds of written records. Most texts were cut into stone pillars, slabs, temple walls and rock faces. A smaller number were engraved on sets of copper plates.

Telugu writers call a stone inscription a sila-sasanam. A grant on copper plates is a tamra-sasanam.

P. V. Parabrahma Sastry counted about a dozen copper-plate records that refer directly to the Kakatiya rulers. In his 1975 thesis he wrote that the stone records number more than one thousand. His 1978 book gives the number as nearly one thousand.

Epigraphia Telanganica, published in 2023, compiles 2,396 inscriptions of the whole Telangana region, from the first century to the Nizams. Volume II covers the Kakatiyas up to Ganapati Deva, with 425 inscriptions and 164 variant editions. Volume III covers Rudrama Devi and Prataparudra, with 402 inscriptions and 116 variants.

The database on this site holds 1,863 records extracted from Epigraphia Telanganica. Of these, 715 records match a Kakatiya ruler or a Kakatiya subordinate family. Each record is taken from its own entry in the published volumes.

Kings set up some of these records. Rudra Deva set up the inscription at the Thousand Pillar Temple in Anumakonda in 1163. The inscription records the gods that he installed and the village that he gave for their worship.

Women of the royal family set up others. Mailama, the sister of Ganapati Deva, set up the Bayyaram tank inscription. Epigraphia Telanganica notes that women servants of the king also gave cows for perpetual lamps in temples.

Generals and subordinate chiefs set up many more. The general Recherla Rudra set up the inscribed pillar at the Ramappa temple in Palampet in 1213.

Merchants and villagers also made gifts. In 1090 the merchant body of Anmakonda gave one mana of oil every day for a lamp, according to the Kazipet pillar. In 1289 a servant named Puvula Mummadi made the gift recorded at Chandupatla.

Parabrahma Sastry explains why a donor had a gift written on stone. The donor wanted nobody to disturb the gift. The donor also wanted the temple managers and the herdsman who supplied ghee to keep the service going for generations.

Not every building received an inscription. Parabrahma Sastry notes that a rule of the Dharmasastras forbade a donor to praise his own good deeds. For that reason some temples and tanks carry no inscription.

Most Kakatiya records follow a fixed order. A short record may leave parts out. The Chandupatla stone of 1289 has no invocation and no curse verses.

Parabrahma Sastry notes that the invocation and the curse verses are customary in all inscriptions except epitaphs and similar records.

Indian law-books laid down what a royal grant had to contain. A. C. Burnell, writing in 1878, listed the clauses. A grant gives the family tree of the donor, the nature of the gift with its receiver, purpose, conditions and date, curses on anyone who breaks it and, rarely, the names of witnesses.

1. The invocation opens the record. The Thousand Pillar inscription begins with Om and Hail. It then praises Vishnu as the Boar, the god Ganesa and the goddess Sarasvati.

The Ramappa pillar begins with Sri Rudresvaraya namah, which means obeisance to the blessed Rudresvara. The Bayyaram tank inscription begins with Sri Mahadevaya namah. The Kotagiri plates begin with Svasti, which means hail.

The Motupalli pillar of Ganapati Deva, of 1244-45, opens with an invocation of Svayambhudeva. E. Hultzsch cites the Prataparudriya to show that Siva under this name was the family god (kula-devata) of the Kakatiya dynasty.

2. The praise of the king and the family tree come next. Scholars call this part the prasasti. Parabrahma Sastry writes that kings had their own greatness written into their records in the form of prasasti.

In the Thousand Pillar inscription, lines 20 to 163 give the genealogy and the praise of Rudra Deva. The Kotagiri plates praise Queen Rudramamba in one verse. The plates then praise the family of the donor in ten verses.

3. The date follows. The Ramappa pillar dates its gift to Saka 1135, the cycle year Srimukha, the eighth day of the bright fortnight of Chaitra, a Sunday. The part of this guide on dates explains each element.

4. The record names the donor, often with the donor's family and overlord. Parabrahma Sastry states that no inscription lacks the name of its donor. The Kotagiri plates name Sura of the Viryala family, a subordinate of Queen Rudramamba.

5. The gift is the core of the record. Rudra Deva gave the large village of Matticheruvala for the worship of Siva, Vishnu and the Sun at the Thousand Pillar Temple.

Gifts for lamps are common. In 1079 King Beta gave land for a perpetual lamp at Hanamkonda, and the record fixes twelve manikas of ghee for the lamp. In 1245 a Viryala chief gave thirty cows for a lamp in Warangal. A cowherd named Dhammaya took the cows and agreed to supply the ghee.

Some gifts were incomes or coins. At Terala in 1292 a donor gave the tax income of a village to the god Siddhesvara. In the Uttaresvara grant Prataparudra gave 100 nishkas, which were gold coins, to the scholar Viddanacharya.

6. The record states the purpose. Many gifts paid for worship, lamps and offerings in a temple. At Bhutpur in 1259 the chief Malyala Gunda built a tank and named the tank after his mother.

Many gifts were made for the merit of another person. At Chandupatla, Puvula Mummadi gave land so that Rudrama Devi and the general Mallikarjuna Nayaka might reach the world of Siva.

7. Land grants describe the boundaries of the land. The Mangallu copper plates of about 956 name a landmark in each of the eight directions around the village. The Kotagiri plates describe their village as marked with four boundaries.

Some records name witnesses. The Karimnagar copper plates of 1246 settle a dispute over a canal. The plates record that elders of three villages gave evidence, and the plates list the witnesses in Telugu.

8. Verses of blessing and curse come near the end. The Ramappa pillar says that a person who takes away granted land is born as a worm in dung for sixty thousand years.

The same verse appears in the Kondiparti inscription of 1203 and in the Kotagiri plates. Another common verse says that protecting a gift earns more merit than giving it. Editors often print these lines only as the usual imprecatory verses.

9. Some records end with the names of the poet and the engraver. The ascetic Achintendra, a disciple of Advayamrita, composed the verses of the Thousand Pillar inscription.

At Bhutpur in 1259 the scholar Isvara Suri received land for composing the Sanskrit text. A man named Oddaya engraved the record. The Guduru pillar of 1124 names its engraver, the sutradhari Kommoju.

Engravers sometimes made mistakes. Parabrahma Sastry reports that three of the twenty-four lines at Chandupatla are illegible because of the engraver's negligence.

Many stones also carry emblems above the text. The Ramappa pillar shows a linga, a cow and calf, the sun and moon, and Ganesa, one on each face. The Kotagiri plates hang on a metal hoop that bears a boar, the Kakatiya emblem.