Battle of Devarakonda

01The siege and the relief

The Recherla Velamas had held Telangana forts such as Rajakonda and Devarakonda since the fall of the Kakatiyas, sometimes allied with the Bahmanis and sometimes against them. When Humayun Shah’s army besieged Devarakonda, the Velamas appealed to Kapilendra Deva, the Gajapati king of Odisha, whose power was then expanding south. Firishta records that the Bahmani army was defeated with heavy loss when the Odia relief force and the garrison attacked together.

02The Gajapati high tide

Devarakonda was part of the great expansion of Kapilendra Deva, founder of the Suryavamshi Gajapati line in 1434. His armies under Hamvira reached as far south as the Kaveri, taking Kondavidu, Udayagiri and even Kanchi for a time. Within two generations this southern empire was lost again to Vijayanagara, when Krishnadevaraya took Udayagiri and Kondavidu from Prataparudra Gajapati. The Velamas themselves were soon absorbed by the Bahmanis, but Devarakonda’s hill fort still stands above the town.

Dynasty · 1434–1541 CESuryavamshi Gajapatis of OdishaKapilendra Deva took the throne of the Gangas in 1434 and built, for a few decades, the largest Hindu kingdom of the east. His grandson Prataparudra welcomed Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to Puri.Read →