01The Nayakas rise
When Warangal fell in 1323 the Kakatiya kingdom was broken into Tughlaq provinces. Its Nayakas, the fort commanders and chiefs of the old army, went to the hills and forests. Prolaya Nayaka of the Musunuri family drew them together and freed the coastal Andhra country; his Vilasa copper-plate grant describes the misery of the land under the Sultanate and its freeing. After Prolaya’s death his cousin Kapaya led the confederacy, and around 1336, with help from the Hoysala king Veera Ballala III, he took Warangal and forced the Tughlaq governor Malik Maqbul to flee to Delhi.
02Andhradesadhisvara
Kapaya took the title Andhradesadhisvara, lord of the Andhra country, and ruled from Warangal. He helped Hasan Gangu in the revolt that founded the Bahmani Sultanate in 1347, and later found the Bahmanis a worse neighbour than Delhi had been; he had to give up the fort of Golconda to them. In 1368 the Recherla Velama chiefs, once his allies, turned against him, and he was killed at the battle of Bhimavaram. The Kaluvacheru grant of 1423 lists the seventy-five Nayakas who had stood with the Musunuris.
