CDS (I) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 97 of 120

Correct — A, Kakatiya. Both titles belong to the Kakatiya house of Warangal, and the one that is firmly documented is 'Raya-gaja-kesari' — borne by Rudrama Devi, who ruled from 1262 to 1289 and who inherited the biruda from her father Ganapati Deva. The image packed into it is a battlefield one: 'gaja' is the elephant, 'kesari' the lion, and a king who styles himself a lion to the elephants that are rival kings is claiming to break the strongest thing on the field. Rudrama Devi took the claim literally enough to have herself carved as a lion-mounted warrior with dagger and shield in a pavilion she commissioned. The Kakatiyas ran from about 1163, when Rudradeva declared sovereignty, to 1323, when Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq's forces ended the kingdom; their capital was Orugallu, the modern Warangal.

• (b)Vijayanagara — Wrong house and wrong century. Vijayanagara was founded on the Tungabhadra only after the Kakatiya kingdom had already fallen, and its rulers are remembered by a different stock of titles. The lion-over-elephants pair is not part of the Vijayanagara record.
• (c)Gajapati — The most tempting wrong answer, because the dynasty's own name carries 'gaja'. But Gajapati means lord of elephants — the ruler owns the elephants. These titles say the opposite: the king is the lion that overpowers elephants, meaning rival kings. The word being shared is not evidence of the same dynasty.
• (d)Rashtrakuta — The Rashtrakutas ruled the Deccan from Manyakheta centuries before the Kakatiyas and were displaced long before these titles appear. Their epigraphic titles are their own; neither of the two named here belongs to them.

A biruda is a royal title carried in inscriptions and on coins, and Indian dynasties can often be identified by their birudas alone. The Kakatiyas of Warangal, who ruled the Telugu country from about 1163 to 1323, used a family of titles built on the lion-and-elephant image. 'Raya-gaja-kesari' — lion to the elephants that are enemy kings — is the best attested of them, carried by Rudrama Devi and before her by her father Ganapati Deva.

The paper prints the pair as 'Rayagajakesari' and 'Dayagajakesari'. The first is the standard form and is securely documented for the Kakatiyas; the second, as printed, is not a spelling I could confirm in any reference account, and it is best read as a companion form of the same Kakatiya biruda rather than as a separate title of some other house. That does not disturb the item, because the decisive clue is the shared 'gaja-kesari' core, which is Kakatiya. Where candidates lost the mark was by matching 'gaja' to the Gajapatis of Odisha — a word-match, not a title-match. Ganapati Deva is also the ruler who cleared the chiefs harassing foreign merchants at the port of Motupalli and gave the traders written concessions, which is why that port keeps turning up in questions on this dynasty.

• Rudrama Devi, Kakatiya ruler from 1262 to 1289, bore the title 'Raya-gaja-kesari', inherited from her father Ganapati Deva.
• The Kakatiya capital was Orugallu, the modern Warangal in Telangana; Rudradeva shifted it there from Anumakonda.
• Rudradeva declared Kakatiya sovereignty around 1163; the dynasty ended in 1323 when Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq's army took Warangal.
• A sculpture from a pavilion Rudrama Devi commissioned shows her as a lion-mounted warrior carrying a dagger and a shield.
• Ganapati Deva, whose reign ran from 1199 to 1262, secured the seaport of Motupalli for foreign merchants and granted them concessions.

• Matching a title to a dynasty because they share one Sanskrit word — 'gaja' in the title and 'Gajapati' in the dynasty name are not the same claim.
• Placing Vijayanagara before the Kakatiyas; Vijayanagara rises only after Warangal has fallen.
• Assuming a queen's titles were invented for her — Rudrama Devi's principal biruda came down from her father.

Usually as a one-line title-to-dynasty match, or folded into a statements item on Kakatiya rule, Warangal and the Motupalli trade.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Rudrama Devi, who bore the title 'Raya-gaja-kesari', belonged to which one of the following dynasties?

  • (a)Hoysala
  • (b)Kakatiya
  • (c)Yadava of Devagiri
  • (d)Eastern Ganga

  Answer(b) Kakatiya — Rudrama Devi ruled from Warangal between 1262 and 1289 and inherited the title from her father Ganapati Deva.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Orugallu, the capital of the Kakatiya dynasty, is which one of the following present-day cities?

  • (a)Warangal
  • (b)Bidar
  • (c)Vijayawada
  • (d)Kurnool

  Answer(a) Warangal — Rudradeva moved the Kakatiya capital from Anumakonda to Orugallu, today's Warangal in Telangana.