South India before the Sultanate: the last Cholas, Hoysalas, Pandyas and Kakatiyas, 1070 to 1323 CE

Literary sources

Tamil works of the later Chola period (South India: Pallavas, Pandyas, Cholas)
- Sekkizhar's Periyapuranam, about 1135: the lives of the 63 Nayanmars.
- Kamban's Ramayanam: the Tamil Ramayana.
Tikkana completed the Telugu Andhra Mahabharatam under Kakatiya patronage, one of the greatest literary achievements of medieval Andhra.

Foreign accounts

Marco Polo visited the south about 1292 to 1294 and described the Pandya kingdom and the Gulf of Mannar pearl fisheries.
He also wrote of a woman ruler in Andhra, likely Rudrama Devi of the Kakatiyas.

Inscriptions

Thousands of temple inscriptions of the Cholas, Hoysalas and Kakatiyas record land grants, endowments, guild donations and administration.
These temple inscriptions are the richest evidence for the south's economic and social history.
The Kakatiya inscriptions, in Telugu and Sanskrit, stand at Warangal and associated sites.
They are the primary evidence for Kakatiya administration and cultural patronage.

Archaeology and monuments

The Hoysala temples of Belur, Halebid and Somnathpur, World Heritage Sites since 2023, are the evidence for Hoysala art and religion.
The Ramappa temple, inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2021, is the most important Kakatiya monument.

Sources for the south, 1070 to 1323

Source	Kind	What it gives
Temple inscriptions of the Cholas, Hoysalas and Kakatiyas	Inscriptions	Land grants, endowments, guild donations, administration and royal claims
Kakatiya inscriptions	Telugu and Sanskrit inscriptions	Kakatiya administration and cultural patronage
Periyapuranam; Kamban's Ramayanam	Tamil literature	The lives of the 63 Nayanmars; the Tamil Ramayana
Tikkana's Andhra Mahabharatam	Telugu literature	Kakatiya patronage of letters
Marco Polo, about 1292 to 1294	Foreign account	Pandya wealth, the pearl fisheries, a woman ruler in Andhra
Belur, Halebid, Somnathpur; the Ramappa temple	Monuments	Hoysala art and religion; the most important Kakatiya monument

Inscriptions, poets, one traveller and the temples themselves.Source: Medieval Theme 6 handout

Kulottunga I

Kulottunga I, r. 1070 to 1122, was born of a Chola princess and an Eastern Chalukya prince of Vengi.
Through that birth he united the two realms, the Chola and the Vengi, in one person.
He conducted the kadaswaram survey of revenue and reorganised the territorial units.
His 52 year reign was relatively stable and prosperous.

Pressure from outside and within

From the mid 12th century the Pandyas reasserted their independence from the Cholas.
The Hoysalas expanded into land that had been held by former Chola feudatories.
Through the 12th century the Chola grip on northern Sri Lanka weakened, and Sinhalese rulers took it back.
That loss took from the Cholas a revenue source and a symbol of their maritime dominance.
As central power weakened, local chiefs asserted their independence.
Revenue that should have gone to Thanjavur was kept locally.

Rajendra III, the last Chola

The last Chola, Rajendra III, ruled from 1246 to 1279.
By then he was effectively a Pandya vassal, and the dynasty formally ended about 1279.

What remained

The Cholas left behind the village assemblies and the nadu, which outlasted the dynasty.
They also left three World Heritage temples, the bronzes and the Tirumurai. (South India: Pallavas, Pandyas, Cholas)

Origins

A legendary hunter, Sala, struck a tiger or lion to save his Jain guru.
The cry hoy sala, strike Sala, gave the dynasty its name and its emblem.
The capital was Dvarasamudra, modern Halebid in Hassan district, Karnataka, with Belur as a second seat.
The early Hoysalas were Jains, and later rulers turned Vaishnava under Ramanuja.
That royal conversion spread Sri Vaishnavism across Karnataka.

Vishnuvardhana

Vishnuvardhana, r. 1108 to 1152, was the most important Hoysala ruler.
He began the temple at Belur in 1117.
He took land from the Cholas and Western Chalukyas.

Veera Ballala II

Under Veera Ballala II, r. 1173 to 1220, the Hoysalas reached their greatest extent.
His kingdom was in conflict with the Yadavas of Devagiri.

The Hoysala style

A Hoysala temple has a stellate plan, its platform and walls laid out as a star.
It is carved in soapstone, soft when quarried, which hardens in the air.
Bands of sculpture run round the walls, read upward through elephants, horses, foliage, epics, celestials and deities.
Instead of one tower it has several squat Vesara towers.

The three temples

The temple at Belur, begun in 1117, is Vishnuvardhana's.
The temple at Halebid, of the 12th century, was never finished.
The temple at Somnathpur, built in 1268 by Somanatha Dandanayaka, alone keeps its complete shikhara.
All three became World Heritage Sites together in 2023.

The three great temples

Temple	Place	Builder and date	Key features	World Heritage
Chennakeshava	Belur, Hassan district, Karnataka	Vishnuvardhana; begun 1117	Dedicated to Vishnu; lathe turned star shaped pillars in the navaranga; the bracket figures; decorated for over a century	2023
Hoysaleshvara	Halebid, Hassan district, Karnataka	12th century; Vishnuvardhana and his successors	A twin temple of two Shiva shrines; the frieze unmatched in detail and scale; the shikharas never built	2023
Keshava	Somnathpur, Mysuru district, Karnataka	Somanatha Dandanayaka, a Hoysala general; 1268	A trikuta of three shrines; the only Hoysala temple with its complete shikhara; a circular enclosure wall	2023

Inscribed together in 2023 as the Hoysala Sacred Ensembles.Source: Medieval Theme 6 handout

Veera Ballala III and the end

Veera Ballala III, r. 1292 to 1342, resisted Malik Kafur but was defeated. (The Delhi Sultanate: five dynasties, 1206 to 1526)
The Hoysala kingdom was absorbed by Vijayanagara in the 14th century. (Vijayanagara and the Bahmanis)

The Pandya revival

The Pandyas were subordinate to the Cholas through much of the 10th and 11th centuries.
They began their decisive resurgence from the mid 12th century.

Sadayavarman Sundara Pandya I

Sadayavarman Sundara Pandya I, r. 1251 to 1268, was the first truly great medieval Pandya king.
He defeated the Hoysalas and expelled Chola influence from the far south.

Maravarman Kulasekara Pandya I

Maravarman Kulasekara Pandya I, r. 1268 to 1310, was the greatest Pandya king.
He controlled most of Tamil Nadu and parts of Kerala and Sri Lanka.

Pearls and Marco Polo

The Gulf of Mannar, between southern Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, was the medieval world's most important pearl source.
The Pandyas taxed the pearl trade of the Gulf.
Marco Polo described the Pandya king's treasury of rubies, sapphires and emeralds.
He also wrote of the pearl trade, the cotton textiles exported and the pepper of the interior.

The succession war and the end

After Kulasekara a succession war broke out between the princes Vira Pandya and Sundara Pandya.
In 1311 Vira Pandya invited Malik Kafur, the first time the Sultanate's armies entered the far south. (The Delhi Sultanate: five dynasties, 1206 to 1526)

Origins

The Kakatiyas began as samantas, subordinate chiefs, of the Western Chalukyas of Kalyani.
Prataparudra I, about 1158 to 1196, established their full independence.
Their capital was Orugallu, also called Ekashilanagara, the city of the single rock.
Its modern name, Warangal, is the Telugu form of Orugallu.
They were Telugu speaking rulers who patronised Telugu literature alongside Sanskrit.
Their age saw classical Telugu literature flourish.

Kakatiya rulers

Ruler	Dates	Key achievements
Prataparudra I	About 1158 to 1196	Full independence; checked the Hoysalas and the later Chalukyas
Ganapati Deva	r. about 1199 to 1262	The Telugu world from the Godavari to the Krishna; the Warangal fort; Tikkana; the Ramappa temple
Rudrama Devi	r. about 1262 to 1289	Queen in her own right; commanded armies; died in battle against Ambadeva; named by Marco Polo
Prataparudra II	r. about 1289 to 1323	Defeated by Malik Kafur, 1310, and Ulugh Khan, 1323; the kingdom ended

Four rulers from independence to the fall of Warangal.Source: Medieval Theme 6 handout

Ganapati Deva

Ganapati Deva, r. 1199 to 1262, was the greatest Kakatiya ruler.
He ruled the Telugu lands from the Godavari to the Krishna.
He built the Warangal fort, with its four carved gateways, the kala thoranam.
The gateways survived the Sultanate's partial demolition of the fort and influenced Vijayanagara gateway design.
He patronised the poet Tikkana and the Ramappa temple.

Rudrama Devi

Rudrama Devi, r. 1262 to 1289, was adopted by her father as a son.
She ruled in her own right, with both female and male titles.
She commanded the Kakatiya armies in person.
She was the woman ruler in Andhra of whom Marco Polo wrote.
She fell fighting Ambadeva about 1289.

Prataparudra II and the end

Prataparudra II, r. 1289 to 1323, the last Kakatiya, was defeated by Malik Kafur in 1310 and by Ulugh Khan in 1323. (The Delhi Sultanate: five dynasties, 1206 to 1526)
With his defeat in 1323 the Kakatiya kingdom ended.
His generals Prolaya Nayaka and Kapaya Nayaka later led the resistance that contributed to the founding of Vijayanagara. (Vijayanagara and the Bahmanis)

The Thousand Pillar temple

The Thousand Pillar temple at Hanamkonda is the Svayambhusiva, a trikuta.
It was built about 1163 under Rudra Deva, and is one of the earliest Kakatiya temples.

The Ramappa temple

The Rudreshvara temple at Palampet was built in 1213 by the general Recharla Rudra under Ganapati Deva.
It is called Ramappa after its architect.
It stands on a star shaped platform six feet high.
Its upper shikhara is built of porous bricks that float on water, to lighten the tower.

Its sculpture and its lake

Its madanika figures, bracket figures of celestial women in dance and music, are among the finest Kakatiya sculptures.
The Ramappa lake, an artificial reservoir built by the Kakatiyas, is one of the largest medieval irrigation reservoirs in the Deccan.

Telugu letters

Tikkana, of the Telugu kavitrayam, translated 15 of the 18 books of the Mahabharata.
Palkuriki Somanatha wrote the Basava Purana, on the life of Basavanna. (Bhakti in the south and beyond)

His life

Bhaskara II was born in 1114 at Bijapur, modern Vijayapura in Karnataka, and died about 1185.
Some place his birth near Chalisgaon in Maharashtra instead.

The Siddhantashiromani

His Siddhantashiromani, the Crown of Astronomical Treatises, has four parts.
- Lilavati: arithmetic and geometry.
- Bijaganita: algebra.
- Grahaganita: planetary mathematics.
- Goladhyaya: spherical geometry.
The Lilavati, named after his daughter, sets its problems in verse.
It was the most widely read Indian mathematics text for centuries.

His algebra

His chakravala, a cyclic method, was the first general method for x squared minus N y squared equals 1.
This is Pell's equation, and he solved it 600 years before Lagrange in 1768.
He also worked systematically with surds.

Toward the calculus

He showed that the rate of change of the sine is zero at its maximum.
This and his mean value idea are genuine precursors of the calculus, 500 years before Newton and Leibniz.
He held that n divided by zero is infinity, a step toward limits though wrong as arithmetic.

What he did not achieve

He had no general calculus and no axiomatic proof.
His results spread slowly within the hereditary jyotishi lineage rather than an open community.

Achieved and not achieved

Achieved

The chakravala, a priority no historian of mathematics disputes
Genuine precursors of the calculus
The Lilavati, the summit of Indian arithmetic

Not achieved

No general theory of calculus, and no general theory of limits
No proofs in the axiomatic, deductive style of Greek mathematics
Some astronomical constants kept errors from earlier sources

A firm priority in algebra, and precursors but no theory in the calculus.Source: Medieval Theme 6 handout

Bhaskara I and Bhaskara II
- Bhaskara I, about 600 to 680, and Bhaskara II, 1114 to 1185, are different mathematicians 500 years apart; the medieval questions are about the second.
The three Hoysala temples
- Belur is Vishnuvardhana's, begun 1117; Halebid is of the 12th century and never finished; Somnathpur is Somanatha Dandanayaka's, of 1268.
Ramappa and Rudreshvara
- Ramappa is the temple's popular name, taken from its architect; its own name is the Rudreshvara, a rare case of an architect's name surviving.
Rudrama Devi
- Rudrama Devi ruled as queen in her own right, not as a regent, adopted by her father as a son to give her male succession status.
Three acharyas
- The order is Shankara, about 788 to 820, then Ramanuja, born about 1017, then Madhva, born about 1238.

Kulottunga I
king
Chola, about 1070 to 1122 CE; son of a Chola princess and a Vengi prince; the kadaswaram survey; a 52 year reign.
Rajendra III
king
The last Chola, about 1246 to 1279 CE; effectively a Pandya vassal by the end of his reign.
Vishnuvardhana
king; also Bittideva
Hoysala, about 1108 to 1152 CE; converted from Jainism under Ramanuja; began the Belur temple in 1117.
Veera Ballala II
king
Hoysala, about 1173 to 1220 CE; the greatest extent of the kingdom; fought the Yadavas of Devagiri.
Veera Ballala III
king
The last major Hoysala, about 1292 to 1342 CE; resisted Malik Kafur; the kingdom passed to Vijayanagara.
Somanatha Dandanayaka
general
A Hoysala general; built the Keshava temple at Somnathpur in 1268 CE.
Sadayavarman Sundara Pandya I
king
About 1251 to 1268 CE; the first great medieval Pandya; defeated the Hoysalas and expelled the Cholas from the far south.
Maravarman Kulasekara Pandya I
king
About 1268 to 1310 CE; the greatest Pandya; most of Tamil Nadu, parts of Kerala and Sri Lanka; his court described by Marco Polo.
Vira Pandya
prince
A claimant in the Pandya succession war after Kulasekara; invited Malik Kafur in 1311 CE.
Prataparudra I
king
Kakatiya, about 1158 to 1196 CE; established full independence from the Western Chalukyas.
Ganapati Deva
king
Kakatiya, about 1199 to 1262 CE; the greatest of his line; the Warangal fort; patron of Tikkana and the Ramappa temple.
Rudrama Devi
queen
Kakatiya, about 1262 to 1289 CE; ruled in her own right, not as regent; died in battle against Ambadeva.
Prataparudra II
king
The last Kakatiya, about 1289 to 1323 CE; defeated by Malik Kafur in 1310 and Ulugh Khan in 1323.
Recharla Rudra
general
The Kakatiya general who built the Ramappa temple in 1213 CE under Ganapati Deva.
Ambadeva
general
The Yadava general against whom Rudrama Devi died in battle, about 1289 CE.
Prolaya Nayaka
general
A general of Prataparudra II; led the later resistance that contributed to the founding of Vijayanagara.
Kapaya Nayaka
general
A general of Prataparudra II; with Prolaya Nayaka, led the resistance that contributed to the founding of Vijayanagara.
Tikkana
poet
13th century Telugu poet of the kavitrayam; translated 15 of the 18 books of the Andhra Mahabharatam under the Kakatiyas.
Palkuriki Somanatha
poet
13th century Telugu and Kannada poet; wrote the Basava Purana, on Basavanna.
Bhaskara II
mathematician; also Bhaskaracharya
1114 to 1185 CE; born at Bijapur; the Siddhantashiromani; the chakravala method.
Marco Polo
traveller
Visited south India about 1292 to 1294 CE; described the Pandya kingdom, the Gulf of Mannar pearls and a woman ruler in Andhra.
Malik Kafur
general
Alauddin Khalji's general; defeated Prataparudra II in 1310 and entered the far south at Vira Pandya's invitation in 1311 CE.

The Chennakeshava, Belur
Begun by Vishnuvardhana in 1117 and dedicated to Vishnu; it went on being decorated for over a century.
Dineshkannambadi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Hoysaleshvara, Halebid
A twin temple of two Shiva shrines at Dvarasamudra; its shikharas were never built.
Rohit Sharma, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Keshava temple, Somnathpur
Built by Somanatha Dandanayaka in 1268; a trikuta, the only Hoysala temple that keeps its complete shikhara.
Jmadhu, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A madanika, Belur
A bracket figure of a celestial woman, among the finest examples of Hoysala sculpture.
Basavaraj M, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Ramappa temple, Palampet
The Rudreshvara of 1213, on its star shaped platform, the upper shikhara of bricks light enough to float.
Rangan Datta Wiki, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A kala thoranam, Warangal fort
One of the four carved gateways that survived the partial demolition of the fort by the Delhi Sultanate.
KINNERA ARAVIND, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Thousand Pillar temple, Hanamkonda
The Svayambhusiva, a trikuta of about 1163 on a star shaped platform, one of the earliest Kakatiya temples.
Adbh266, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The walls of Warangal fort
The great fort that Ganapati Deva built at Orugallu, the Kakatiya capital.
Pinakpani, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A gopuram of the Ranganatha temple, Srirangam
The great Ranganatha temple on a Kaveri island, the centre of Ramanuja's life and work.
Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Krishna temple, Udupi
Madhvacharya's centre, managed in turn by his eight mutts under the paryaya system.
Ashok Prabhakaran from Chennai, India, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Vesara: The hybrid temple style of the Deccan, mixing Nagara and Dravida elements; the Hoysala style is classed as Vesara.
Madanika: A bracket figure of a celestial woman in dance, music or daily life, at Belur, Halebid and the Ramappa temple.
Chakravala: The cyclic method; Bhaskara II's general algorithm for what is now called Pell's equation.
Kala thoranam: The carved stone gateways of the Kakatiya fort at Warangal; kala means art.
Ramappa: The popular name of the Rudreshvara temple at Palampet, taken from its architect.
Kadaswaram: The revenue survey conducted by Kulottunga I.
Orugallu: The Kakatiya capital, also Ekashilanagara, the city of the single rock; modern Warangal.
Kavitrayam: The trio of the greatest poets of Telugu literature, of whom Tikkana is one.
Lilavati: The arithmetic and geometry part of the Siddhantashiromani, named after Bhaskara II's daughter.
Siddhantashiromani: The Crown of Astronomical Treatises, Bhaskara II's work in four parts.
Jyotishi: The hereditary tradition of astronomers and mathematicians within which Bhaskara II worked.
Nadu: The unit of territorial organisation that outlasted the Cholas in Tamil Nadu for centuries.

Why did the Cholas decline?

Pressure from outside

The Pandyas reasserted independence, the Hoysalas took former feudatory land, and northern Sri Lanka was lost through the 12th century.

Weakness within

Local chiefs kept revenue meant for Thanjavur, and the Vengi union itself showed the dynasty's dependence on alliance.

The decline was not sudden, not catastrophic, but steady and ultimately irreversible.

Did Bhaskara II anticipate the calculus?

The precursors

He found the sine's rate of change zero at its maximum and used a mean value idea, 500 years before Newton.

No theory

He had no fundamental theorem relating differentiation and integration, and no general theory of limits.

His calculus ideas are genuine precursors, but he did not develop a general theory of calculus.

Prelims

Try each before opening the answer; every question is also on the Prelims PYQs pages.

2020 · Q97

With reference to the history of India, consider the following pairs : Famous Place and Present State.

1.Bhilsa and Madhya Pradesh
2.Dwarasamudra and Maharashtra
3.Girinagar and Gujarat
4.Sthanesvara and Uttar Pradesh.

Which of the pairs given above are correctly matched ?

(a)1 and 3 onlyUPSC key
(b)1 and 4 only
(c)2 and 3 only
(d)2 and 4 only

Show answer and explanation

Pair 1 is correct. Bhilsa is the old name of Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, near Sanchi and Udayagiri, a town of importance from Mauryan times.
Pair 3 is correct. Girinagar is Junagadh in Gujarat, the site at the foot of Girnar bearing the Ashokan rock edicts, the Rudradaman inscription on the Sudarshana lake and the later Skandagupta inscription, one of the richest epigraphic sites in India.
Pair 2 is incorrect. Dwarasamudra is Halebidu in Karnataka, the capital of the Hoysalas, sacked by Malik Kafur, and it lies nowhere near Maharashtra.
Pair 4 is incorrect. Sthanesvara is Thanesar in Haryana, the seat of the Pushyabhuti dynasty from which Harshavardhana came before shifting to Kanauj, which is the Uttar Pradesh town the option is presumably meant to confuse it with. The answer is 1 and 3, giving (a).

Difficult · Static · Ancient and Medieval History · Sources, Chronology and Historiography

2017 · Q51

Which one of the following was a very important seaport in the Kakatiya kingdom?

(a)Kakinada
(b)MotupalliUPSC key
(c)Machilipatnam (Masulipatnam)
(d)Nelluru

Show answer and explanation

Option (b) is correct. Motupalli, in present day Bapatla district on the Andhra coast, was the principal port of the Kakatiyas of Warangal. Its importance is documented by the Abhaya Shasanam, the charter of safety issued there by Ganapatideva in the thirteenth century, which guaranteed foreign merchants against the customary seizure of shipwrecked goods and fixed the duties payable, and it is one of the earliest Indian instruments of its kind. Marco Polo, who calls the place Mutfili, describes the diamond trade of the kingdom under the regency of Rudramadevi.
Option (c) is the designed distractor and the one most candidates take. Machilipatnam was indeed a very important port, but its prominence belongs to the Qutb Shahi period and to the seventeenth century European trade, when it served as the chief port of Golconda and hosted Dutch, English and French factories; it is not the Kakatiya port.
Option (a) is wrong: Kakinada rose as a port under colonial and post colonial development and has no Kakatiya association.
Option (d) is wrong: Nellore was a territorial and political centre, contested between the Cholas, Kakatiyas and Pandyas, but was not the kingdom's maritime outlet. Governing principle: attach each Andhra port to its own dynastic horizon, Motupalli to the Kakatiyas, Machilipatnam to the Qutb Shahis and the Europeans.

Difficult · Static · Ancient and Medieval History · Early Medieval and South India

Not covered in the theme; see the answer.