Reddi kings of Kondavidu and Rajahmundry

01Out of Warangal’s fall

Prolaya Vema Reddi was one of the Kakatiya nobles who joined Musunuri Prolaya Nayaka in driving the Tughlaq garrisons out of the Andhra coast in the 1320s and 1330s. He set up his court at Addanki around 1325. His grants speak of restoring the agraharas of Brahmins that had been seized, and of reopening temple worship. His son Anavota moved the seat to the hill fort of Kondavidu, above the plain west of Guntur, and the kingdom took its name from that fort.

02Errana and Srinatha

Errana, court poet of Prolaya Vema, completed the Telugu Mahabharata by finishing the Aranya Parva that Nannaya had left unfinished, so that the work of Nannaya, Tikkana and Errana stood whole. Kumaragiri Reddi was a lover of dance, and a treatise on it, the Vasantarajiyam, is credited to him. Peda Komati Vema wrote on music in Sanskrit and kept Srinatha as his chief court scholar. Srinatha’s Sringara Naishadham and his Kashi Khandam are still read in Telugu homes.

Person · ruled c. 1333–1368 CEMusunuri Kapaya NayakaKapaya Nayaka took up the leadership of the Telugu Nayakas after his cousin Prolaya Nayaka, drove the Tughlaq governor out of Warangal around 1336, and ruled Telangana until he fell fighting the Recherla Velamas in 1368.Read →

03Between greater powers

The Reddis lived between Vijayanagara, the Bahmanis and the Gajapatis of Odisha, and in the end they could not hold out. After Racha Vema was killed in 1424, Kondavidu passed to Vijayanagara. A branch at Rajahmundry, kept up by the able minister Allada Reddi and his sons, lasted until about 1448, when the Gajapati Kapilendra Deva absorbed it. Kondavidu fort, with its walls running over three hills, changed hands many times afterwards; Krishnadevaraya took it in 1515.