History of the Kakatiyas
The Kakatiyas did not appear at Orugallu as a settled power. The sources first show them as military commanders in Telangana, in the service of the Rashtrakutas. The Kakatiyas then spent about a century and a half as vassals of the Western Chalukyas. Rudra Deva proclaimed sovereignty in 1163.
Old photographs of Kakatiya monuments →
The name “Kakatiya”
The sources give two explanations for the name Kakatiya. The first explanation treats Kakati as a place. The Bayyaram tank inscription of Mailama, a sister of Ganapati Deva, states that Venna, the founder of the family, ruled from a town called Kakati. The inscription adds that his descendants were therefore called Kakatiyas. Ganapati Deva’s Garavapadu grant says that Karikala Chola, an ancestor of the family, camped at a town called Kakati. Later kings carried the title “lord of Kakatipura” in their inscriptions. M. Rama Rao takes Kakatipura to mean Anumakonda, while Telangana – Land and People applies the name to Orugallu.
The second explanation treats Kakati as a goddess. Kumarasvami Somapithin, a fifteenth-century commentator on the Prataparudriya, wrote that the family took its name from the goddess Kakati, a form of Durga. The Telugu poem Kridabhiramamu places Kakatamma beside the goddess Ekavira at Orugallu. Later Telugu chronicles tell a legend of origin. In the Prataparudra Caritramu and the Siddhesvara Charitra, an ancestor named Madhavavarman wins the favour of the goddess Padmakshi of Anumakonda. Lakshmi Ranjanam notes that nobody knows whether Padmakshi was the Kakatamma of the Kridabhiramamu, or whether Kakatamma had her own temple at Orugallu. The Siddhesvara Charitra tells that King Padmasena worshipped Siddhesvara with pumpkins and so obtained a son, Vennama. Lakshmi Ranjanam links this tale with the Kaluvacheru grant of the Reddi queen Anitalli. That grant says that the Kakatiyas were born of a pumpkin creeper.
The town has not yet been identified. Scholars have proposed Kandhara near Nanded, Gandhara near Mancherial, a village called Kakati near Belgaum and Kanker north of Bastar. Parabrahma Sastry calls the Kanker proposal mythical. Parabrahma Sastry and other scholars suggest that the town and its goddess shared one name. S. Gopalakrishna Murthy identifies Kakati with the goddess Chamunda. M. Rama Rao suggests that the family adopted a Jain goddess and later worshipped her as Durga. The Kandhara proposal rests on a tradition in the Siddhesvara Charitra that the family came from Kandarapura. Parabrahma Sastry finds no evidence for that tradition. He also suggests that Garuda Beta set up the Jain goddess on the Padmakshi hill and named her Kakati. The records also disagree about the caste of the family. Some inscriptions of Ganapati Deva's reign trace the Kakatiyas to the solar line of kshatriyas. The Bothpur and Vaddamanu inscriptions of the general Malyala Gunda say that they belonged to the fourth caste, and Parabrahma Sastry accepts these. K. Lakshmi Ranjanam, the editor of the Siddhesvara Charitra, places its Kandarapura at Chejerla in Guntur district. He links the town with the Ananda Gotra kings of the fourth century. M. Rama Rao proposed Kanteru, also in Guntur district. Lakshmi Ranjanam also proposes a village called Kakita, 48 miles south-west of Visakhapatnam, as the first home of the family.
Sources:Parabrahma Sastry 1978Epigraphia Telanganica 2023Goel et al. 2022Gopalakrishna Murthy 1964Rama Rao 1966Parabrahma Sastry 1975 (thesis)Lakshmi Ranjanam 1975Talbot 2001Siddhesvara Charitra (ed. 1960)
Anumakonda and Orugallu: the two capitals
Anumakonda, now Hanamakonda, was the first seat of the Kakatiyas. An inscription of 872 already names the town. The Bayyaram inscription says that Beta I made Anumakonda his capital after killing two enemies called Anuma and Konda. Parabrahma Sastry accepts that Beta I settled there but calls the story of Anuma and Konda fictitious. M. Rama Rao credits the move to Prola I, who received the Anumakonda district as a fief from the Chalukya king Somesvara I. Parabrahma Sastry reads the name in that inscription as Armakonda. A Chalukya ruler named Satyasraya Bhimarasa set it up in the 58th regnal year of the Rashtrakuta king Amoghavarsha I. A later tradition explains the name in another way. The Siddhesvara Charitra makes Anuma and Konda two sons of Yerukadeva Raju, a hunter king who ruled at Hanumakonda before the Kakatiyas.
Orugallu lies about 5 km from Anumakonda. The surveys of 1900 and 1909 credit its founding to a Kakatiya king called Potraj or Proda Raja, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries respectively. The name refers to a large boulder-like hill, and Sanskrit texts call the town Ekasilanagara. Orugallu existed by about 1098, when the Kazipet Darga inscription named it. A founding legend survives in tradition. The Prataparudra Caritramu, a Telugu chronicle of the sixteenth century, says that Prola II found a touchstone linga buried in the ground and built a new town around it. Parabrahma Sastry links this tradition to the god Svayambhu, the family deity. The Siddhesvara Charitra tells the founding legend with a cart. A cart overturned on a stone near Hanumakonda, and its iron turned to gold. Prola built a Siva temple over the stone and planned the city of Orugallu around it. The chronicles give Saka 909 (987 CE) for the founding. Lakshmi Ranjanam notes that this date does not fit Prola II.
The sources disagree about when the court moved. Parabrahma Sastry states that Rudra Deva began a new fort at Orugallu and that Ganapati Deva completed the move. A Bekkallu inscription of January 1176 still describes Rudra Deva ruling at Anumakonda. Another Bekkallu inscription, of 1195, describes him ruling from Orugallu. M. Rama Rao calls Orugallu a joint capital under Rudra Deva and the permanent capital under Ganapati Deva. H. Krishna Sastri placed the move near the end of the reign of Ganapati Deva. Telangana – Land and People states that Rudra Deva completed the stone fort himself. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 says that Ganapati Deva began the stone wall and that Rudrama Devi completed it and added the outer mud wall. In one passage of his 1975 thesis, Parabrahma Sastry also credits Rudra Deva with completing the stone fort, but his 1978 book drops that statement. Lakshmi Ranjanam writes that Ganapati Deva completed the fort that Rudra Deva had begun. The Siddhesvara Charitra, a Telugu poem of about 1600, tells the same story as the Imperial Gazetteer. In the poem Ganapati Deva builds a stone fort at Orugallu, and Rudrama Devi completes the unfinished fort and adds an earth fort.
Sources:Parabrahma Sastry 1978Epigraphia Telanganica 2023Rama Rao 1966Goel et al. 2022Imperial Gazetteer 1909ASI 1900Parabrahma Sastry 1975 (thesis)Lakshmi Ranjanam 1975Talbot 2001Siddhesvara Charitra (ed. 1960)
Warangal had three walls, one inside another. The stone wall and the earthen wall survive, and the map draws them from the OpenStreetMap trace. Deloche describes a third wall of earth and rubble, which formed a circle about 12.2 km across. Only traces of this wall survive, so the map draws it as a circle around the fort. Hanamakonda, the earlier capital, lies about 7 km north-west of the fort, near the line of the outermost wall.
Plan compiled from:OpenStreetMapDeloche 2007Aerial view of Warangal Fort (blog image)
Coins, weights and measures
The Kakatiyas used small gold coins called gadyanas or madas. The coins carry the boar, the royal emblem, with the sun, the moon and a legend such as Rayagajakesari or Dayagajakesari. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry assigned these coins to the Kakatiyas in 1975. Earlier scholars had given them to chiefs who served the Western Chalukyas.
Inscriptions record the names and values of the coins. Ten rukas made one gadyana. The Kakatiyas also gave the name kesari to their measures of grain, such as the kesari-tumu. Copper coins with the legend Kakatiya Prataparudra belong to the Gajapati king of Orissa, not to Warangal.
Sources:Parabrahma Sastry 1975 (coins)Nizam Archaeological Report 1925-26Epigraphia Indica XIIBanerji 1930
The extent of Kakatiya power
Under Ganapati Deva the empire reached its widest. The exact frontier is not recoverable from the sources and is better shown schematically than falsely drawn.
At its widest under Ganapati Deva, the empire is described as reaching Kanchi in the south, the sea in the east and Bellary in the west. In the north-east his forces raided as far as Aska in Ganjam around 1212. They did not hold it and fell back south of the Godavari, so Aska is drawn as the reach of a campaign, not a frontier.
Limits after Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal. The base map is from Natural Earth (public domain), with modern state borders for orientation. This is a locator diagram, not a survey.
The Jain monuments of Hanamakonda
Anumakonda was a Jain centre before and under the early Kakatiyas. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 recorded several Jain sculptures cut into the rocks around Hanamakonda. M. Rama Rao describes numerous Jain sculptures on the hills round the old citadel. Aggalayya Gutta is a hill at Hanamakonda with large Jain Tirthankaras carved on its rock faces. No inscription on the hill has been reported, and no published survey describes the carvings. Writers date them to the 9th to 11th century on grounds of style. If these dates are right, the carvings are older than Kakatiya rule, or they come from the years when the Kakatiyas still served the Chalukyas. Local tradition names the hill after Aggalayya, a Jain muni. No written source consulted calls Aggalayya a muni. The 1961 Census of Warangal district describes a rock-cut image of a Jain tirthankara on the slope of the hill next to the Thousand Pillar Temple. The census does not name the hill or date the image. The same census records a story that a Jain preacher named Jinadasaswamy had his seat where Hanamakonda now stands. Inscriptions record a Jain royal physician named Aggalayya. A pillar inscription of 1034 at Saidapur records that he built Jain temples at Mucchanapalli and Ikkuriki. Records of 1069 to 1074 from Medak district call him a mahasamanta and praise his wife. These records describe a layman and an official, not a monk, and none of them mentions Hanamakonda.
The Padmakshi temple stands on a hill at Anumakonda. An inscribed pillar before the shrine records that Mailama built the Kadalalaya basadi, a Jain temple, on the hilltop. Mailama was the wife of Beta, a minister of Prola II. Epigraphists date the record to 24 or 25 December 1117. A Tirthankara and his two attendant deities are carved on the rock inside the shrine. S. Gopalakrishna Murthy dates these sculptures to the Rashtrakuta period and credits Mailama with the tower and the hall.
The Sanigaram inscription of Beta I records a gift to a Jain temple. The Banajipet inscription of 1082 records a gift by Beta II to the Virakamala Jinalaya, a Jain temple built by the Polavasa chief Medaraja. Beta II and his sons also took initiation in the Kalamukha school of Saivism. Parabrahma Sastry reports a tradition that Prola II made Saivism the family religion. The female attendant sculpture at Padmakshi is now worshipped as Padmakshi, a form of Durga. H. Krishna Sastri wrote that nobody knows when the temple passed from Jain to Brahmin hands. Gopalakrishna Murthy links the destruction of Jain shrines around Hanamakonda to Saiva hostility after the death of Mahadeva and under Ganapati Deva. P. Sreenivasachar wrote that the stories of Jain persecution under Ganapati Deva have no reliable basis. An inscription at Bekkallu from the reign of Rudra Deva shows Jain and Saiva worship in one family. A Mallireddi, whose family religion was Jainism, built twenty-one temples to Siva. The record says that the four faiths differ only on the surface and that god is one. The Siddhesvara Charitra, a poem of about 1600, describes many basadis round the fort of Hanumakonda. The poem tells that Tikkana defeated the Buddhists and Jains of Anumakonda in debate in the reign of Ganapati Deva. In the poem their basadis are then pulled down and the Jains are killed. The editor, K. Lakshmi Ranjanam, rejects this story and holds that Jainism declined on its own.
Sources:Parabrahma Sastry 1978Epigraphia Telanganica 2023Goli Penchala Prasad et al. 2020Rama Rao 1966Gopalakrishna Murthy 1964Imperial Gazetteer 1909Sreenivasachar 1942Census 1961, Fairs and Festivals: WarangalWikimedia Commons descriptionsTelangana360, 2024Deccan Chronicle 2018Parabrahma Sastry 1975 (thesis)Siddhesvara Charitra (ed. 1960)
Sammakka and Sarakka
The sources record this as tradition, not as fact established by inscriptions.
Sammakka and Sarakka are worshipped at Medaram, a forest village that the 1981 census placed in Eturnagaram taluk of Warangal district. Their story survives mainly as oral tradition and festival history. The 1961 Census records that the Gonds of Medaram worshipped “Sadalamma or Sammakka”. The jatara was held once in two years, for three days from the Wednesday before Magha Purnima, and drew about 50,000 people. Alekhya Punjala's biography of Rudrama Devi (2016) records the popular version. In her telling, the tribal chief Pagidigidda Raju served Pratapa Rudra. During a famine the king refused to remit his taxes, and the chief declared independence. The chief, his daughter Saralamma and his son-in-law Govinda Raju died in the battle that followed. His wife Sammakka fought on, was badly wounded and vanished into the forest. Punjala cites no source for this story.
Telangana – Land and People (2022) tells the story differently. The book places the conflict in the twelfth century, under Prola II and Rudra Deva. In this version both women came from Koya ruling families, and Sarakka was a daughter of Medaraja II of Polavasa. Sammakka’s son Jampanna died in a ten-day battle near Medaram. The book does not cite an inscription for this battle. Inscriptions do record wars of Prola II and Rudra Deva against Medaraja. The 1981 District Census Handbook lists the shrine of Sammakka and Saralamma at Medaram, and names the village “Medaram (Sammakajatra)”. Parabrahma Sastry places Polavasa, the seat of Medaraja, at the modern Polas in Jagtial taluk. He reads a broken inscription of Gangadhara, minister of Rudra Deva, as saying that Medaraja refused to give his daughter to Rudra Deva and lost his wealth and fame instead.
Sources:Goel et al. 2022District Census Handbook 1986Parabrahma Sastry 1978Census 1961, Fairs and Festivals: WarangalParabrahma Sastry 1975 (thesis)Punjala 2016
After the Kakatiyas, 1323–1948
Warangal remained a contested prize after the fall of the Kakatiyas. The sections below follow the city from the Tughluq conquest to the end of Nizam rule.
- The fall of Warangal and Tughluq rule (1323 – c. 1336)
- The Musunuri Nayaks (c. 1325–1369)
- The Recherla Velamas and the Bahmani conquest (1369 – c. 1475)
- Shitab Khan and the Qutb Shahis (c. 1500–1687)
- The Mughals and the Asaf Jahi Nizams (1687–1948)
The fall of Warangal and Tughluq rule (1323 – c. 1336)
Ulugh Khan, the son of Sultan Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq, returned to Warangal with fresh troops after his first siege failed. Barani dates the first expedition to 721 AH (1321 CE). Sarma, Parabrahma Sastry and the 1976 Warangal Gazetteer date the fall of the fort to 1323. Haig wrote in 1907 that most sources gave 1321 and that Badauni gave 1323. Barani wrote that the fort fell after a few days. Isami, an earlier writer, described a siege of five months that ended when the garrison ran out of food. Pratapa Rudra surrendered and was sent towards Delhi with his family. The Vilasa grant states that he died on the way, on the banks of the Narmada. Haig followed an older view that he returned to Warangal and ruled as a vassal until 1325. Shams-i Siraj Afif also states that the Rai of Telingana died on the road to Delhi. Telugu traditions say that the king returned and died at Kalesvaram, but Yashoda Devi rejects them.
Barani records that the conquerors renamed Warangal as Sultanpur. Ulugh Khan appointed officers to manage the country and collected one year’s tribute. At Bodhan, the Deval Masjid occupies a former temple that Muhammad bin Tughluq converted into a mosque. Ibn Battuta records that the Sultan banished the jurist Diya al-Din of Simnan to Tiling and later made him qadi, the judge, at Warangal, where he died.
Muhammad bin Tughluq later came to Warangal while cholera was widespread there. Barani states that the Sultan then made Malik Maqbul, the deputy wazir, ruler of Telangana. Barani adds that Nusrat Khan received Bidar. Ibn Battuta places the outbreak at Badrakut, which he calls the capital of Tiling. Ibn Battuta writes that most of the army died, including great amirs. Ibn Battuta adds that Nusrat Khan, the Sultan's deputy in Tiling, later rebelled at Badrakut and surrendered to Qutlu Khan. Yashoda Devi dates the epidemic to 1335. Shams-i Siraj Afif records that Maqbul was a native of Telangana named Kattu, who accepted Islam after the death of his king. Venkataramanayya and Sarma suggest that Kattu was Nagaya Gannaya, governor of the capital under Pratapa Rudra. Maqbul lost Warangal to Kapaya Nayaka. Barani says that Maqbul fled to Delhi. Ferishta calls the governor Imad-ul-Mulk and says that he fled to Daulatabad.
Sources:Elliot & Dowson IIIIbn Battuta (Gibb)Yashoda Devi 1975Parabrahma Sastry 1978Yazdani 1960Haig 1907Warangal District Gazetteer 1976Epigraphia Telanganica 2023Somasekhara Sarma 1948
The Musunuri Nayaks (c. 1325–1369)
M. Somasekhara Sarma reconstructed the history of the Musunuri Nayaks in 1948, mainly from copper-plate grants. Kolani Rudradeva, a surviving general of Pratapa Rudra, gathered a confederacy of chiefs. The members included Prolaya Nayaka of the Musunuri family, Vema Reddi of Addanki and Singama Nayaka of the Recherla family. The chiefs chose Prolaya Nayaka as their leader. His Vilasa grant describes harsh Muslim rule and his return of agraharas, the villages granted to Brahmins. Prolaya Nayaka ruled the coast from Rekapalli near the Godavari. Sarma places his death about 1340.
Kapaya Nayaka, a cousin of Prolaya Nayaka, carried the war into Telangana. Indian Archaeology 1962–63 calls him a brother. Kapaya expelled the Tughluq governor from Warangal and took the titles Andhradesadhisvara and Andhra Suratrana. Sarma dates the recapture to about 1336–37. Ferishta dated the revolt to 1343–44 and named its leader Krishna Nayak, a son of Pratapa Rudra. Sarma and Venkataramanayya identified that leader as Kapaya Nayaka. Yashoda Devi describes an early war between Kapaya and Singama Nayaka of the Recherla family. Kapaya used the title 'lord of Anumanagallu', an old Recherla title, in inscriptions of 1346 and 1357. Cynthia Talbot notes that Kapaya Nayaka's Prolavaram grant of 1346 calls him as majestic as Pratapa Rudra and says that he chose to live in Warangal. She reads such claims as efforts by new chiefs to borrow the prestige of the Kakatiyas.
Kapaya sent troops to help Hasan, who founded the Bahmani kingdom in 1347. Hasan’s forces soon attacked him, and Kapaya lost Kaulas and Bhongir. Yashoda Devi dates the loss of Kaulas to between 1347 and 1351, and a second invasion by Sultan Ala-ud-din Hasan to about 1355–56. An inscription at Pillalamarri, dated 1 June 1357, records that a servant of Kapaya reinstalled the god Erakesvara after Sultan Alavadin had damaged the image. Yashoda Devi and a catalogue of 1964 take this Sultan to be the Bahmani ruler. Indian Archaeology 1962–63 names Ala-ud-din Khalji instead. Kapaya’s son Vinayaka Deva later failed to retake Kaulas, and Sultan Muhammad Shah I put him to death. Yashoda Devi dates his death to about 1362. Sarma dates a treaty to 1364–65, under which Kapaya ceded Golconda. Haig and the 1976 Gazetteer add that the envoys of Warangal presented a jewelled throne, the turquoise throne. Anapota Nayaka of the Recherla family then defeated and killed Kapaya at Bhimavaram near Warangal. Sarma dates the battle to about 1367–68. Yashoda Devi places it in 1368, before the Ainavolu inscription of 19 July 1369. Epigraphia Telanganica places it in the second half of 1369.
Sources:Somasekhara Sarma 1948Yashoda Devi 1975Yazdani 1960Epigraphia Telanganica 2023Haig 1907Warangal District Gazetteer 1976Talbot 2001
The Recherla Velamas and the Bahmani conquest (1369 – c. 1475)
The Recherla Nayakas claimed that their family had served the Kakatiyas. Anapota Nayaka's inscription of 1369 says that Pratapa Rudra gave his grandfather Dachaya the title Pandya-raya-gaja-kesari. Cynthia Talbot notes that no independent record confirms this service. Parabrahma Sastry and Talbot both separate this family from the Recherla Reddis, the Kakatiya generals who built the Ramappa temple. Yashoda Devi states that Chalukya chiefs at Jallipalli had their father, Singama Nayaka, murdered. Anapota and Mada stormed Jallipalli in 1361 and took the title Somakulaparasurama. Anapota Nayaka and his brother Mada ruled the conquered kingdom together. Anapota held Rachakonda as his capital, and Mada ruled from Devarakonda. Three inscriptions of 1365 at Rachakonda record Anapota’s stone defences and a tank called Anavota Samudra. The Ainavolu inscription of 19 July 1369 states that Anapota ruled Orugallu, Tribhuvanagiri, Rajukonda and Singavaram. Modern historians call this family Velamas. Cynthia Talbot points out that the chiefs called themselves Recherla. She finds the words Velama and Padmanayaka in inscriptions only from the sixteenth century.
The 1976 Warangal Gazetteer states that the Bahmanis never invaded the Recherla kingdom. Epigraphia Telanganica counts three Bahmani invasions of Velama territory in the same period. Sultan Ahmad Shah later marched on Warangal to punish its ruler for helping Vijayanagara. His general Khan-i-Azam killed the ruler and took the fort. The sources date this capture differently. The Imperial Gazetteer and Hirananda Sastri give 1422. Haig gives late 1424, and Ferishta dates the events to 828 AH, a year that began in November 1424. Nizamuddin Ahmad, who wrote about 1593, also dates the march to 828 AH. Nizamuddin records tribute from the chiefs of Rajkonda and Deorkonda but does not mention the capture of Warangal. The 1976 Gazetteer places the march in 1425 and names the slain ruler as Anapota II. The chiefs of Rachakonda and Devarakonda kept their lands on promise of tribute.
Bahmani control of Warangal remained weak. In 1459 Sultan Humayun attacked Devarakonda, whose chief asked Kapilendra Gajapati of Orissa for help. The Gajapati army defeated the Bahmani forces there. Two inscriptions on the gateways of Warangal Fort record its capture on 2 February 1460. The eastern gate names Kapilendra’s son Hamvira as the captor. The western gate names his nephew Raghudeva. Sreenivasachar placed Hamvira’s record on the western gateway. The 1976 Gazetteer states that the Devarakonda branch ended with Linga, and Epigraphia Telanganica dates Linga to 1427–1475. Nizamuddin Ahmad dates the Devarakonda campaign to 863 AH (1458–59). Nizamuddin states that the Rays of Tilang had stopped their tribute and that Khwaja Jahan besieged Deorkonda. The garrison called on the Ray of Orissa, whose army, with one hundred elephants, defeated Khwaja Jahan.
Sources:Epigraphia Telanganica 2023Yashoda Devi 1975Tabaqat-i-Akbari IIIWarangal District Gazetteer 1976Imperial Gazetteer 1909Hirananda Sastri 1932Haig 1907Nizam’s Archaeological Reports 1920–31Parabrahma Sastry 1978Talbot 2001
Shitab Khan and the Qutb Shahis (c. 1500–1687)
The late Bahmani state divided Telangana into the provinces of Warangal and Rajahmundry. The 1976 Gazetteer dates the appointment of Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk as governor of Telangana to 1496. Firishta, as summarised by Brajendranath De, states that Sultan Quli was made tarafdar, or governor, of Warangal about 1495.
A pillar in front of Sambhuni Gudi in Warangal Fort records that Chittapa Khana captured Warangal on 21 January 1504. Hirananda Sastri edited the record in 1932. Sastri identified Chittapa Khana as Shitab Khan, whose Hindu name was Sitapati. The inscription states that he reinstalled the god Panchalaraya and the goddess Kakati, the guardian deity of the Kakatiya kingdom. Muslim Turks, called Turushkas, had removed both images.
The sources disagree about Shitab Khan. Sastri held that he was a Hindu who had earlier governed Warangal for the Bahmani Sultan Humayun. Haig called him a Muslim who had joined the Hindus. P. Sreenivasachar separated the Bahmani officer of about 1460 from the captor of 1504. The Ekasilanagara Kaifiyat, a local record, says that Shitab Khan pulled down Kakatiya temples to finish the stone fort. The same record says that he built a palace called khas-mahal. Sastri identified the great hall in the fort, now called Khush Mahal, as his durbar hall. Nizamuddin Ahmad names a Shitab Khan as the guardian of the harem of Sultan Humayun, who arranged the Sultan's murder in 1461. Firishta calls this man Shihab Khan, a eunuch. Neither writer connects him with Warangal. Cynthia Talbot also treats Shitab Khan as a Telugu warrior, not a Muslim. She notes that a later Telugu text calls him an ally of the Gajapatis.
Shitab Khan later lost Warangal to Sultan Quli. Sastri dates this loss to about 1512. Haig states that Shitab Khan still held Warangal in 1515 and later gave it up without a fight. The 1976 Gazetteer places the decisive campaigns after 1530. The Imperial Gazetteer dates Qutb Shahi rule from 1512, but an inscription of 1518 at Golconda still calls Sultan Quli a governor under the Bahmani Sultan Mahmud Shah. Firishta, as summarised by De, dates Sultan Quli's declaration of independence to 918 AH (1512). Firishta adds that Sultan Quli still sent five thousand huns to the Bahmani Sultan every month in secret.
Sources:Hirananda Sastri 1932Tabaqat-i-Akbari IIIWarangal District Gazetteer 1976Haig 1907Imperial Gazetteer 1909Epigraphia Telanganica 2023Nizam’s Archaeological Reports 1920–31HRIDAY Warangal leafletTalbot 2001
The Mughals and the Asaf Jahi Nizams (1687–1948)
Under Sultan Abul Hasan, the minister Madanna appointed his cousin Asanna governor of Warangal. The king and his minister strengthened the Warangal fort against the Mughals. Aurangzeb besieged Golconda from February 1687 and took the citadel in October. Warangal passed with Golconda into the Mughal empire, under the Subahdar (governor) of Hyderabad.
Mughal control in the region was weak. Papra, a toddy-tapper turned freebooter, captured and plundered Warangal Fort. Haig dates the raid to 1 April 1708, while the Imperial Gazetteer gives 1709. A Mughal officer later captured Papra and had him put to death.
Nizam-ul-Mulk defeated the Mughal governor Mubariz Khan at Shakarkhelda in 1724. The emperor then recognised his power in the Deccan and gave him the title Asaf Jah. The Imperial Gazetteer states that he then lived at Hyderabad. The 1976 Gazetteer states that Aurangabad remained his seat until Nizam Ali Khan (1761–1803) moved the capital to Hyderabad. In 1767 an East India Company force under Colonel Peach occupied Khammamett and Warangal. The Nizam then made the treaty of 1768 with the Company.
The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 records that Hanamakonda held the offices of the Subahdar, the divisional commissioner. The district headquarters moved to Warangal in 1905. The rule of the Nizam ended in September 1948 with the Indian Union’s Police Action. Hyderabad State, including Warangal district, then merged with the Indian Union. The 1981 District Census Handbook records that the post of Subahdar was abolished after the merger.
Sources:Warangal District Gazetteer 1976Haig 1907Imperial Gazetteer 1909District Census Handbook 1986
Predecessors and overlords
The powers the Kakatiyas served, in order.
Vishnukundins
c. 375–612 CEPredecessor in the Warangal region
Seat: Keesaragutta or Indrapura, later Trivaranagara
The Vishnukundins ruled Telangana and later coastal Andhra between about 375 and 612 CE. Their early capitals were at Keesaragutta or Indrapura.
Attribution: moderate
Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi
640–1070 CEOverlord
Seat: Vengi
The Eastern Chalukyas ruled coastal Andhra from Vengi. Parabrahma Sastry describes the early Kakatiyas as generals of the Rashtrakutas, not of the Eastern Chalukyas.
Attribution: moderate
Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta
c. 753–975 CEOverlord
Seat: Manyakheta (modern Manyakheta, Karnataka)
Parabrahma Sastry records that the early Kakatiyas were military commanders of the Rashtrakuta kings. They settled in Telangana about 900 CE as frontier guards.
Attribution: moderate
Western Chalukyas of Kalyani
c. 973–1157 CEOverlord, and the dynasty's formative power
Seat: Kalyani (modern Kalyani / Bidar district, Karnataka)
The relationship with the Western Chalukyas was decisive. After the Rashtrakuta collapse in 973, Beta I entered Western Chalukya service. Five rulers then served Kalyani as vassals. Rudra Deva proclaimed his independence in the Anumakonda inscription of 1163.
Attribution: good
Contemporaries and rivals
Powers the Kakatiyas fought, matched or outlived.
Yadavas of Devagiri
c. 1186–1318 CERival, repeatedly at war
Seat: Devagiri (modern Daulatabad, Maharashtra)
Mahadeva died fighting the Yadava king Jaitugi in 1198. The Yadava king Mahadeva later besieged Orugallu under Rudrama Devi. Armies of the Delhi Sultanate attacked Warangal in 1303, 1309–10 and 1318. Malik Kafur led the campaign of 1309–10.
Attribution: moderate
Hoysalas of Dwarasamudra
c. 10th–14th century CEContemporary, with a parallel temple tradition
Seat: Dwarasamudra (near modern Hassan, Karnataka)
Along with the Kakatiyas, the Hoysalas were great temple builders of the medieval Deccan. The Ramappa nomination dossier illustrates the Siddheshwara temple at Haveri as a contemporary Hoysala temple.
Attribution: moderate
Cholas of Thanjavur
c. 848–1279 CESuccessor in the Tamil country. The Kakatiyas took over the vacated coastal Andhra.
Seat: Thanjavur (Tamil Nadu)
The Kakatiyas extended their rule into coastal Andhra during the reign of Ganapati Deva.
Attribution: moderate
Qutb Shahis of Golconda
1512–1687 CESuccessor in Telangana
Seat: Golconda (Hyderabad)
After Kakatiya rule ended in 1323, the region passed through the Delhi Sultanate, the Bahmanis of Bidar, the Qutb Shahis and the Nizams. Shitab Khan began as a governor under the Bahmanis. He seized Warangal in January 1504 and restored the image of the Kakatiya family goddess.
Attribution: moderate
On the naming of the last ruler
Pratapa Rudra (1289–1323) was the last ruler of the Warangal line. For the fort itself, see the site’s own record of what is documented and what is tradition.