हिंदीOn this day
Standing

Motupalli

The Kakatiya port on the Andhra coast where Ganapatideva set up a pillar in 1244–45 promising foreign merchants fair duties and safety for wrecked cargo. Marco Polo landed here and wrote of the wise widowed queen who ruled the land: Rudrama Devi.

Built: Kakatiya seaport; Ganapatideva’s charter to merchants, 1244–45Where: Andhra Pradesh (Bapatla district), on the Bay of Bengal15.73° N, 80.28° E
  1. 1244–45
  2. c. 1292
Photo: Torchtelangana · CC BY-SA 4.0

01The merchants’ charter

Before the Kakatiyas, the custom on this coast was that a ship driven ashore by storm, with all its cargo, became the king’s. Ganapatideva, the Kakatiya king at Orugallu, ended it. His Motupalli pillar inscription, an abhaya shasana or charter of safety dated Saka 1166, 1244–45 CE, declares that merchants coming by sea from any land may trade here, that only the fixed duty will be taken, and that goods from wrecked ships will not be seized. It names the port Desiyuyyakondapattana. The trade in cloth, pepper and gems that followed paid for much of Warangal’s building.

02Marco Polo’s Mutfili

Marco Polo, sailing home from China around 1292, describes the kingdom of Mutfili, ruled by a queen who had been a widow for forty years and who governed with such justice that her people loved her more than any king before. He writes of its fine cotton cloth, like spider’s web, and of the diamonds of its hills. The queen was Rudrama Devi, Ganapatideva’s daughter, who ruled the Kakatiya kingdom as king. Motupalli today is a fishing village with old temples, among them a Veerabhadra temple of the Kakatiya period.

The life of this place

  1. 1244–45Ganapatideva’s charter of safety for merchants is set up at Motupalli.
  2. c. 1292Marco Polo visits Mutfili.

People

Rudrama DeviQueen
reigned c. 1262–1289 CE

Rudrama Devi

Kakatiya queen who ruled in her own name

Nearby

Kondavidu FortRuined
Sultanates, Vijayanagara and the kingdoms that stood

Kondavidu Fort

The hill capital of the Reddi kings, who rose after the fall of Warangal and kept coastal Andhra Hindu for a century. Krishnadevaraya took it from the Gajapatis in 1515.

Panakala Narasimha Temple, MangalagiriStanding
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Panakala Narasimha Temple, Mangalagiri

One of the eight great Narasimha kshetras of Andhra, where the open mouth of Narasimha on the hill drinks exactly half of whatever jaggery water is poured in, and gives back the rest as prasad.

Undavalli CavesStanding
The Gupta Age

Undavalli Caves

Across the Krishna from Vijayawada a whole hillside has been cut into a four-storeyed temple, and on its upper floor Bhagwan Vishnu lies on Shesha in a single carved figure about five metres long.

Kanaka Durga Temple, VijayawadaStanding
Vedic Rishis and the Itihasa

Kanaka Durga Temple, Vijayawada

The golden Durga of Indrakeeladri hill above the Krishna at Vijayawada, the city that takes its name from Arjuna’s victory. Her Navaratri is the largest festival in Andhra.