Yadavas

The Yadavas or Sevunas of Devagiri were the rivals of the Hoysalas in contending for the possession of the Chalukya and Kalachuri kingdoms. They claim descent from Lord Krishna and style themselves as lords of Dvaravati (or Dvaraka). There were several severe battles between the Hoysalas and Yadavas and their claims and counter claims, often conflicting witch each other, are met with in a number of inscriptions found in the middle Mysore districts. Upto about the end of the reign of Ballala II (about 1220), who by a series of victories over the forces of the Yadavas under Bhillama V (1187-1191) and Jaitugi (1191-1210) carried his conquests upto and, even beyond, the Krishna, the Hoysalas were supreme in this country. Later, however, the Yadavas gained the upper hand and the Hoysalas were forced to retire to the south of the Tungabhadra. The earliest of the Yadava inscriptions south of this boundary belong to the time of Singhana (1210-1247), who perhaps took the advantage of Ballala II's death to extend his territories in the South. In this and the succeeding reigns, a part of the Chitradurga district, more or less compris­ing the present Davangere taluk, wherein almost all the Yadava inscriptions are concentrated, appears to have been under the Yadavas.

The earliest Yadava inscription120 in the Chitradurga district is dated 1250 and belongs to the reign of Krishna or Kanhara (1247-1260). It is a very much defaced inscription found at Kadlabalu in the Davangere taluk. His other iuscription121 is dated 1258 and comes from Chikkabidare in the same taluk. It states that one of Krishna's generals set up the god Kanneshvara in Bidare on the east bank of the Tungabhadra in the Bikkiga-70 of the province of Nolambavadi-32000 , and made grants for it. One Chandi Setti is represented as ruling locally at Huligere.

Of Mahadeva, younger brother of Krishna , who was the next king (1260-1271), we have a number of inscriptions, most of them recording grants made by local chiefs. According to two or three of these, Anuje modern Anaji, a village 12 miles east of Davan­gere was a great Agrahara town, and according to another, Betur was superior to Kanchi and the chief place for the Jangama worship.

There are a few inscriptions belonging to the next king, Ramachandra (1271-1309), who was the last Yadava king to have inscriptions in this district. In one of these inscriptions, dated 1271(122), one Kuchi Raja is said to have received the circle of Betur and other villages from the king. In another(123) dated 1275, one Tipparaja or Tipparasa, a minister of Ramachandra, is represented to have been given by the latter the government of the region from Rayanakhande in the south to the Perdore ( Krishna ) in the north. His most important inscription, however, is the one dated 1280, found at Harihar and recording the construction of a temple at Harihar(124). The inscription, which is a high-flown composition, commences with elaborate invocations and gives the geneology of the kings. It refers to an earlier Yadava invasion of the Hoysala territories in which the Yadava general, under Mahadeva, named Saluva Tikkama Deva Rane is said to have led a victorious expedition against Dorasamudra and taken back with him a tribute of all kinds of wealth, elephants and horses. The king Mahadeva, on first seeing Harihara-pura, where Hari and Hara had manifested themselves not separately but in one form, for the destruction of Guha ; looking upon it as combin­ing all the glories of Kuru, Kashi, Varanasi, Himagiri, Gaya, Godavari and Sriranga, he is stated to have made it a manya (rent-free) in his name. On a second visit, he is further stated to have made it a Sarvamanya (free from all taxes) agrahara. And Saluva Tikkanna himself after obtaining permission, is said to have set up near the god Harihara an image of Lakshmi-Narayana in the name of his master Mahadevaraya and later constructed a temple and fixed on it a golden Kalasa and made grants for it. All the Brahmins of Harihara and the citizens of Uchangi and Betur and all other chief cities of Nonambavadi, etc., are said to have held a great meeting at Harihar to decide the dues to be granted for the god. The Yadava inscription is dated 1300 and records the regrant of Harihar to the Brahmins by one Khandeya Raya, son of Mummadi Singeya Nayaka.

No inscription belonging to the last Yadava king Shankara, who ruled for only 3 years and in whose reign the kingdom fell a prey to the Muslim invaders, has been found in this region. By 1318, the Deccan kingdom was annexed to the Khilji empire by Mubarak Shah and one Malik Yaklakhi was made the governor of Devagiri. In spite of this annexation, however, considerable areas of the Yadava kingdom, particularly in the south, were still outside the Muslim empire and one such part was the kingdom of Kampili , which soon proclaimed its independence under Singeya Nayaka and his son. Malik Kafur had tried to annex this part also. He led an unsuccessful expedition against Kampili, and before making a second attempt, he was recalled to Delhi . The north-west part of the district perhaps formed a part of this kingdom until its fall in about 1327. Later it again appears to have formed part of the Hoysala territories till the establishment , of the Vijayanagara kingdom.

Courtesy : Gazetteer of India, Chitradurga District, 1967.