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No. 30] VILASA GRANT OF PROLAYA-NAYAKA
261 the survivors as well as the sons of those that perished in the struggle, acknowledged their supremaoy and leadership and served them faithfully.
Let us see if we can spot out any of the Nāyakas that served Prola and Kāpa and co-operated with them in liberating the country. With the fall of Warangal, the leadership of the coastal region passed from the hands of the kings of the Lunar and Solar dynasties into those of the Nāyakas of the Musunuri family of the fourth caste. Of the other Nāyakas of this period, we already know that Vēma was one. Most of the chiefs, ministers and commanders of the Kākatiya emperor, Pratäparudra, lost their lives in the last fatal siege of Warangal. A few, who had survived the disaster, are known to us from both inscriptions and literature. One of them was Kolani Rudradēva alias Pratāpa rudra, the mahāpradhāni of Kakati Pratāparudra and son of Gannaya-mantri. He was a contemporary of Anna-mantri and a great Sanskrit scholar and the author of Rājarudriyam, & work on grammar. He was the grandson of Kolani Soma-mantri, the minister of Käkati Ganapatidēva and the subjugator of the māndalikas of Kolanuvidu or Sara Ipuri. It is known from the Sivayogasāram, a Telugu work on Saiva theology, written by Ganapatidēva of the Kolani family, that Kolani Rudradēva bad taken part in the expedition to Kāñchipura (1315 A.D.) during the reign of Pratāparudra and defeated the five Pāņdya chiefs. The statement in the same work that he protected the stone fort of Warangal 80 as to win the commendation of Käkatēsa (i.e. Pratāparudra) and that he slew some Yavana chiefs, makes it clear that he had taken an active part in the wars with the Mussalmans. Yet it appears strange that none of his records prior to 1323 A.D. has come to light. An epigraph at Santamāgalūru in the Guntur District dated in the cyclio year Kshaya, corresponding to Saka 1248 (1326 A.D.) in the reign of Kakati Prataparudra, registers a gift of land to the temple of Göpinātha of that village by Kolani Rudradova for the merit of that king on the occasion of a solar eclipse. Pratāparudra, as we know, was already dead by the date of this record. It has therefore to be presumed that Rudradova, the donor of the record, shook off by that time the Muslim yoke and was free to make at his will a grant of land for the merit of his late master out of respect and devotion.
Another survivor was Anna-mantri of the Bendapūdi family, the Gajasähini of Käkati Pratáparudra, who is described in the Bhimēsvara Purana of Srinātha as the veritable fire in annihilating the Yavanas and the establisher of the throne of the adhyaksha of the Andhra country. The term adhyaksha, which means supervisor or president (and not king), no doubt refers to Prölayanāyaka, and probably to Kāpaya-nāyaka also after him. This title suggests that it was through the successful efforts of Anna-mantri that the selection of the supervisor or the president of the oonfederacy of nobles of the Andhra country was made possible and that the president so elected was made acceptable to all the chiefs, who combined together to liberate the country. The title is meaningless, if this is not its import. Thus, the title indicates, in unmistakable terms, the successful and prominent part played by Anna-inantri of the Bendapūdi family. The same work, Bhimēsvara Puranan, referred to above, informs us that Anna-mantri received the village of Arēdu, which was full of many crops grown by the supply of canal waters, as an agrahāra on the occasion of a solar eclipse. There must have been some significance for the special mention of Rudradova's gift of this village to Anna-mantri. If this solar eclipse, on which the village was granted, was the same as that mentioned in Rudradēva's Santamāgalūru record, cited above, this grant must have been made to Anna-mantri soon after the successful culmination of the war of independence and the liberation of the coastal region, probably in appreciation of his services to
Rajarudriyam: Adiraja-Kakatiya-Prataparudra-pradhana-varyasya Mudraka-Gannaya-on-rachilari Värttika. vyakhyanam.
* 4, R. Ep., No. 308 of 1915. Bhimefuara Puranam, I. 48: Arndhra-bhimandal-adhyaksha-simhasana-sampratishthapan-dehårýa.
