09-01-2006, 07:00 AM
Digvijay here are some articles about the resistance in the south:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Somadeva of AravIDu and the freedom struggle
By Hauma Hamiddha | Published 10/9/2005 | Indian History , Hinduism |Â
somadeva of AravIDu and the freedom struggle
Around 1326 Mohammed ibn Tughlaq dispatched dispatched two Turkic ghazis Maliq Zada with an army from Gujarat and Majir Abu Rija from Devagiri to wage a jihad on kampiladeva rAja of Kampili. After the rAja and his son, along with their allies the chiefs harihara, bukka and their brothers made a valiant attempt to stave off the Islamic armies from the strong fort of Kummata. Twice the Tughlaq armies were repulsed by the Hindu forces. But in the third attempt the siege drew long and the Hindus ran out of provisions and had to forfeit the fort and continue the defense of the land from the fort of Hosadurga. But Hosadurga was not well stocked and after a month the Hindus had to take on the Islamic armies in an open battle. In the battle that followed kampiladeva and his son were slain while harihara and bukka were arrested and sent to Delhi as prisoners. The head of kampilideva was stuffed with straw and paraded around to put the fear of Allah into the people. Maliq Zada in the mean time marched against Vira ballAla of the Hoysala kingdom, while Tughlaq was destroying the Kohli settlements near Pune. Tughlaq then dispatched Maliq Muhammad to wage a Jihad on Kurnool, Anegondi, Raichur and Mudgal. These provinces were captured by the Ghazi and the Hindu population was slaughtered indiscriminately.
The Vilasa copper plate inscription provides a graphic account of the Islamic atrocities commited during this invasion of the Maliq:
"In a hundred sinful ways, the residents were tortured for the sake of money. Merely on beholding the Meccan demons some abandoned their lives. brAhmaNas were disallowed to perform their sacrifices and rituals. Temples were destroyed and idols were desecrated and broken. All the agrahAras, which had long been in the enjoyment of the most learned brahmin scholars, were taken away. Forcibly deprived of the fruits of their crops, the farmers, both the rich and poor, got ruined. In that great calamity, people could not regard their money, wives and other earthly belongings as their own. The wretched Mohammedans revelled always in drinking wine, eating cow's flesh, raping women and killing the brAhmaNas. When such is the case, how could the world of living beings exist? Situated as the country was without the possibility of a saviour being conceived even in imagination, the land of Telanga, was tormented in this way by that army of the turushka suratrANa, which was exactly like rAkShasas, was in flames like a forest surrounded by wild fire".
It was under these trying circumstances that the great freedom struggle was initiated in the Eastern half of the Andhra country the valiant shUdra (kamma and reDDi) chiefs, namely, proLaya nAyaka, kApaya nAyaka and proLaya vema reDDi took up the cause of the fight back of the Hindus. But in the western half of the Telugu country and neighboring Karnataka, the honor of the fight back goes back to the valiant somadeva (somideva). somadeva was the son of gonkaladevI and pinnayya, and claimed descent from the ancient line of the kShatriya chAlukyas from pulakeshin I. We can derive the following from their vaMshavalli: Their dynastic legend from around the mid-500 ADs had it that they were given a boon by kArttikeya that they would found a long-lived warlike clan that would rule widely, perform great yAgas and defend the land. The chAlukyas had after their heydey split up into many distinct lineages that ruled all over India. A northern lineage ruled in Rajasthan as the rAjpUt dynasty of the solAnkis. The western branch had split up into the main branch that ruled in Gujarat and a minor branch in Kalyan and Konkan. The Eastern branch emerged from the younger brother of pulakeshin II of Vatapi, viShNuvardhana who originally was a commander of the army at the headquarters in Satara (modern Maharashtra; the Satara inscription). He was then sent to Vangipura, during the war against the pallavas, where he ruled as viceroy. Subsequently these chAlukyas fused with the choLas to give rise to the chAlukya-choLa combine of the Telugu country. But with the rise of the kAkatIyas the chAlukyas declined and were reduced to local chiefs from which somadeva arose.
The inscription from the Agastyeshvara temple in Tenali suggests that somadevaâs clan were vassal chiefs under pratAparudra of Warangal. He had watched the fall of the king and the devastation of the land by the Mohammedans as a youth, and decided to live up to the reputation of his ancient kShatriya clan. Building up on his core army by organizing the Hindus of Rayalsima for a struggle against Maliq Muhammad he managed to raise a formidable force of 6000 cavalry. In 1331 somadeva initiated the freedom struggle against the Moslems in the Doab of the Krishna and Tungabhadra by launching surprise assaults on the line of forts by which the Moslems held their sway over the land. The ancient shAtavahanas under emperor rudra shAtakarNi had built the fort of Satanikota in the Shrisailam region. The Moslems having captured had set up a garrison there sandwich the Hindu rebellion between two armies and crush it. But somadeva was informed of this move by the agents of the reDDis and the nAyakas. So he launched a lightning strike on Satanikota at night and defeated the Moslem army and drove them out. Then he destroyed the Moslem troops and merchant caravans distributed over the Kurnool region and created a base for the further struggle. First he carried out the war of 7 forts where he cutoff the Moslem line of supplies and coordination in the Doab of the two rivers by capturing the Mosalimadugu, Kandanavolu, Kalvakolanu, Etagiri and Ganganenikonda. In the battle of Ganganenikonda the chronicle states that somadeva scaled the fort wall personally and conducted an assault on the garrison leading the troops from front. With this in place he attacked the Moslem army at Raichur, which was sent to deal with him and having destroyed it liberated Raichur from the Turushkas. On the way back to Kurnool he was attacked by the Majir and his forces from Gosangi. But somadeva proved too much for him and he was forced to fall back into the fort. But the Hindus besieged the fort and stormed it Majir was decapitated, and somadeva offered his head as a bali to aghora bhairava who presided over the tank in the fort. From there he proceeded to recapture the mighty fort of Anegondi which had fallen to Tughlaq by scaling the walls secretly and letting in his troops to storm the fort. Then he liberated Mudgal after capturing the fort from Tughlaqâs Naib and slaughtering the Moslem force placed in the city. He restored the places of worships, farms and agrahAras of the Brahmins. Finally somadeva had a showdown with the main army of Maliq Muhammad who was advancing from Kampili. His forces massacred much the Moslem army and the survivors scattered all over but were mopped by the reDDIs, vIra ballala and the nAyakas. The Maliq was captured, but foolishly somadeva let him return to Delhi after he had forsaken Kampili. However, somadeva did not live long after his triumphs but founded the famed AravIDu line, which was to serve the Vijayanagara rulers through many deed of valor in war. Finally his descendent rAmarAya became the ruler of Vijayanagara itself after the clan of kR^iShNadeva.
The dvipada bAlabhAgavataM gives the chronicle of somadevaâs career. It gives him the title: chaturdasha-pura-nishudan- the destroyer of 14 forts. It also states: âHe is verily like indra himself, possessed of great energy, who scaled the walls of the impregnable Moslem fortsâ. The text also states that somadeva's son was raghavadeva born of his wife kamalAdevI. His son was pinnabhUpAla, born of raghavadeva's wife bAchaladevI.
Thus, did the brave somadeva lead the Hindus in their historic struggle against the Moslems, after the Khaljis and Tughlaq had attempted to destroy the dharma
http://www.india-forum.com/articles/45/1/S...reedom-struggle<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Vema Reddy
In 1311 Alla-ad-din Khalji sent his lover and general Maliq Kaffr to devastate the Telengana region with his ferocious army of Islam. The invasion was savage and Hindu kshatriyas of the Kakatiya, Chalukya and Chola clans fought with great valor but were routed in the battles around Warangal. The survivors took shelter in the fort of Kondapalli and held out against the Mohammedan blizzard. However, in 1316 Alla-ad-din died and the tumultuous events in Delhi triggered by the Gujarati rebellion prevented the Mohammedans from consolidating their grip over Telangana. As result there was severe local unrest and Kakatiyas under Prataparudra started re-establishing themselves. The veteran Ghazi from Afghanistan, Ghazi al Maliq Tughlaq, soon set matters right for the Mohammedans in Delhi and decided to consolidate the flagging Jihad in peninsular India. He sent his able successor Mohammed bin Tughlaq to prosecute the Jihad with unrelenting vigor in South India. M b Tughlaq charted elaborate plans for the invasion of Pune, Devagiri, Telengana and Tondaimandalam and set them rolling in 1321. After having sacked Pune in course of a year long siege of Kondana which was valiantly defended by Naga Nayaka he plowed through Devagiri and turning south east arrived in Telengana in 1322. After a prolonged, fierce see-saw encounter in which the Mohammedans constantly receiving supplies from Devagiri and Delhi the Kakatiya army of Prataparudra was vanquished at Warangal. They were forced into the defensive as the army of Islam mounted a massive encirclement attack on the fort of Rajamahendravaram. They held out for 6 months but at the end of it the Mohammedans stormed the fort and massacred the defenders to man. Prataparudra and his family was captured and sent to Delhi, but on the way he killed himself rather than go through the ordeal of converting to Islam. The grand Shri Venugopala Swami temple built by the Chalukyas was demolished by Tughlaq and he erected a mosque using the material from the temple. With that the kshatriya presence in Telengana had been smashed the the oppressive cresent banner terrorized the land.
In 1325 the responsibility of organizing defense of the dharma was taken up by the valiant shudra warrior Prolaya Vema Reddy. Son of local warlord, he describes himself "as one of the 4th varNa that emerged from the feet of mahAviShNu" who decided to rid the land of the wicked Turks after kshatriyas had all been killed for the protection of the agrahAras and brAhmaNas. Vema Reddy drawing inspiration from his deity ga~nga, who had also apparently emerged from the feet of viShNu as the fourth varNa, and the warrior god kumAra assembled a large army drawn from the peasants and herdsmen of the ravaged land. His clan had long excelled in cattle raids and honed the skills of the the rapid hit and run methods. He joined hands with two other major local landowners like Prolaya Nayaka and Kaapaya Nayaka and they formed a coalition with at least 75 other local strongmen and warlords. Reddy assembled his Hindu armies at Addanki and marched on the Tughlaq army. The Reddys apparently used biological warfare in this conflict and contaminated the water supplies leading to the Mohammedans with sewage resulting a raging dysentry which decimated the Tughlaq army. M b Tughlaq himself fell ill and retreated. As the Moslems were in disarray the Hindu army fell upon them and crushed remanants in pitched encounter at the outskirts of Warangal. The Vema Reddy realized that even though the army had departed the local Moslem Amirs and merchants were a major obstacle in restoring Hindu rule. So he conducted a series of raids destroy their trading networks and militias and extirpating the pockets of Islamic garrisons distributed over the country. In the process they were aided by the Hindu king Vira Ballaala of Dwarasamudra, who staved of attacks by the army of Islam from its head quarters in Devagiri. In 1335 M b Tughlaq sent a large force under Maqbool Iqbal to smash the Hindu revival in Telengana. However, the Reddy and Nayaka army aided by auxillaries sent by Vira Ballaala inflicted a massive defeat on them, killing 15 Moslem Amirs on the field. Vema Reddy chased Iqbal into the Warangal fort and seeing that he was hard-pressed to defend it Kaapaya Nayaka stormed the fort. Vema Reddy then moved on the fort of Kondvidu and stormed it by hacking off the head Maliq Gurjaar, the Moslem commander. Then liberated Nidadavolu, Vundi and Pithapuram after pitched battles. He then massacred an army of Jalal-ud-din Shah in a raid on Tondaimandalam even as Ballaala engaged the sultan himself. However, after a long struggle with the Sultans of Madhurai and Delhi, Ballaala finally into the hands of the Moslems. He was skinned alive and his dry skin was pegged on one of the wall of Madhurai (seen later by ibn Battuta). Undaunted Vema Reddy launched a series of daring attacks on the Moslem garrisons in the forts of Bellamkonda, Vinukonda and Nagarjunakonda and captured all of them after slaughtering the defenders. He raised his flag in Kondavidu and declared himself a Raja. His famous inscriptions from this period state: " I restored all the agraharas of Brahmins, which had been taken away by the evil Moslem kings". "I am indeed an Agastya to the ocean which was made of the Moslem". To restore the dharma he instituted major repairs to the Shrishailam rudra temple and built a flight of steps from the Krishna river to the temple on the mountain top. He also repaired the viShNu temple at Ahobilam. He also built a palace in Kondavidu for housing the women he had accquired. This became the harem for all the other subsequent Reddys. His restoration of the dharma also caused a major revival of local literature, especially under the auspices of the Telugu author Erranna, a vatsa bhArgava brAhmaNa of the middle migration of the bhArgavas. His rAmAyaNa was supposed to have been a master piece.
His successor was Anavema Reddy who continued the struggle against the army of Islam. His began by liberating Rajahmahendravaram and demolished a Mazar which had been built there on a Hindu shrine. He then scaled the fort of Korukonda with a small force at night liberated it from the Moslem garrison. Next he conquered Simhachalam fort and parts of the Kalinga kingdom.His inscription states "I the valiant member of the 4th varNa destroyed the throngs of Moslems and gathered learned brAhmaNas at this court". He built the vIra shiromanDapam in the Shrishailam temple. The Shrishailam temple was also renovated by two other great Hindu fighters, Krishnadeva Raya and Shivaji Chatrapati at a later time.
The war of independence in Telengana is one more of those largely forgotten stories of the provincial Hindu resistance in the aftermath of the Khalji-Tughlaq years.
http://manollasa.blogspot.com/2004/03/vema-reddy.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Somadeva of AravIDu and the freedom struggle
By Hauma Hamiddha | Published 10/9/2005 | Indian History , Hinduism |Â
somadeva of AravIDu and the freedom struggle
Around 1326 Mohammed ibn Tughlaq dispatched dispatched two Turkic ghazis Maliq Zada with an army from Gujarat and Majir Abu Rija from Devagiri to wage a jihad on kampiladeva rAja of Kampili. After the rAja and his son, along with their allies the chiefs harihara, bukka and their brothers made a valiant attempt to stave off the Islamic armies from the strong fort of Kummata. Twice the Tughlaq armies were repulsed by the Hindu forces. But in the third attempt the siege drew long and the Hindus ran out of provisions and had to forfeit the fort and continue the defense of the land from the fort of Hosadurga. But Hosadurga was not well stocked and after a month the Hindus had to take on the Islamic armies in an open battle. In the battle that followed kampiladeva and his son were slain while harihara and bukka were arrested and sent to Delhi as prisoners. The head of kampilideva was stuffed with straw and paraded around to put the fear of Allah into the people. Maliq Zada in the mean time marched against Vira ballAla of the Hoysala kingdom, while Tughlaq was destroying the Kohli settlements near Pune. Tughlaq then dispatched Maliq Muhammad to wage a Jihad on Kurnool, Anegondi, Raichur and Mudgal. These provinces were captured by the Ghazi and the Hindu population was slaughtered indiscriminately.
The Vilasa copper plate inscription provides a graphic account of the Islamic atrocities commited during this invasion of the Maliq:
"In a hundred sinful ways, the residents were tortured for the sake of money. Merely on beholding the Meccan demons some abandoned their lives. brAhmaNas were disallowed to perform their sacrifices and rituals. Temples were destroyed and idols were desecrated and broken. All the agrahAras, which had long been in the enjoyment of the most learned brahmin scholars, were taken away. Forcibly deprived of the fruits of their crops, the farmers, both the rich and poor, got ruined. In that great calamity, people could not regard their money, wives and other earthly belongings as their own. The wretched Mohammedans revelled always in drinking wine, eating cow's flesh, raping women and killing the brAhmaNas. When such is the case, how could the world of living beings exist? Situated as the country was without the possibility of a saviour being conceived even in imagination, the land of Telanga, was tormented in this way by that army of the turushka suratrANa, which was exactly like rAkShasas, was in flames like a forest surrounded by wild fire".
It was under these trying circumstances that the great freedom struggle was initiated in the Eastern half of the Andhra country the valiant shUdra (kamma and reDDi) chiefs, namely, proLaya nAyaka, kApaya nAyaka and proLaya vema reDDi took up the cause of the fight back of the Hindus. But in the western half of the Telugu country and neighboring Karnataka, the honor of the fight back goes back to the valiant somadeva (somideva). somadeva was the son of gonkaladevI and pinnayya, and claimed descent from the ancient line of the kShatriya chAlukyas from pulakeshin I. We can derive the following from their vaMshavalli: Their dynastic legend from around the mid-500 ADs had it that they were given a boon by kArttikeya that they would found a long-lived warlike clan that would rule widely, perform great yAgas and defend the land. The chAlukyas had after their heydey split up into many distinct lineages that ruled all over India. A northern lineage ruled in Rajasthan as the rAjpUt dynasty of the solAnkis. The western branch had split up into the main branch that ruled in Gujarat and a minor branch in Kalyan and Konkan. The Eastern branch emerged from the younger brother of pulakeshin II of Vatapi, viShNuvardhana who originally was a commander of the army at the headquarters in Satara (modern Maharashtra; the Satara inscription). He was then sent to Vangipura, during the war against the pallavas, where he ruled as viceroy. Subsequently these chAlukyas fused with the choLas to give rise to the chAlukya-choLa combine of the Telugu country. But with the rise of the kAkatIyas the chAlukyas declined and were reduced to local chiefs from which somadeva arose.
The inscription from the Agastyeshvara temple in Tenali suggests that somadevaâs clan were vassal chiefs under pratAparudra of Warangal. He had watched the fall of the king and the devastation of the land by the Mohammedans as a youth, and decided to live up to the reputation of his ancient kShatriya clan. Building up on his core army by organizing the Hindus of Rayalsima for a struggle against Maliq Muhammad he managed to raise a formidable force of 6000 cavalry. In 1331 somadeva initiated the freedom struggle against the Moslems in the Doab of the Krishna and Tungabhadra by launching surprise assaults on the line of forts by which the Moslems held their sway over the land. The ancient shAtavahanas under emperor rudra shAtakarNi had built the fort of Satanikota in the Shrisailam region. The Moslems having captured had set up a garrison there sandwich the Hindu rebellion between two armies and crush it. But somadeva was informed of this move by the agents of the reDDis and the nAyakas. So he launched a lightning strike on Satanikota at night and defeated the Moslem army and drove them out. Then he destroyed the Moslem troops and merchant caravans distributed over the Kurnool region and created a base for the further struggle. First he carried out the war of 7 forts where he cutoff the Moslem line of supplies and coordination in the Doab of the two rivers by capturing the Mosalimadugu, Kandanavolu, Kalvakolanu, Etagiri and Ganganenikonda. In the battle of Ganganenikonda the chronicle states that somadeva scaled the fort wall personally and conducted an assault on the garrison leading the troops from front. With this in place he attacked the Moslem army at Raichur, which was sent to deal with him and having destroyed it liberated Raichur from the Turushkas. On the way back to Kurnool he was attacked by the Majir and his forces from Gosangi. But somadeva proved too much for him and he was forced to fall back into the fort. But the Hindus besieged the fort and stormed it Majir was decapitated, and somadeva offered his head as a bali to aghora bhairava who presided over the tank in the fort. From there he proceeded to recapture the mighty fort of Anegondi which had fallen to Tughlaq by scaling the walls secretly and letting in his troops to storm the fort. Then he liberated Mudgal after capturing the fort from Tughlaqâs Naib and slaughtering the Moslem force placed in the city. He restored the places of worships, farms and agrahAras of the Brahmins. Finally somadeva had a showdown with the main army of Maliq Muhammad who was advancing from Kampili. His forces massacred much the Moslem army and the survivors scattered all over but were mopped by the reDDIs, vIra ballala and the nAyakas. The Maliq was captured, but foolishly somadeva let him return to Delhi after he had forsaken Kampili. However, somadeva did not live long after his triumphs but founded the famed AravIDu line, which was to serve the Vijayanagara rulers through many deed of valor in war. Finally his descendent rAmarAya became the ruler of Vijayanagara itself after the clan of kR^iShNadeva.
The dvipada bAlabhAgavataM gives the chronicle of somadevaâs career. It gives him the title: chaturdasha-pura-nishudan- the destroyer of 14 forts. It also states: âHe is verily like indra himself, possessed of great energy, who scaled the walls of the impregnable Moslem fortsâ. The text also states that somadeva's son was raghavadeva born of his wife kamalAdevI. His son was pinnabhUpAla, born of raghavadeva's wife bAchaladevI.
Thus, did the brave somadeva lead the Hindus in their historic struggle against the Moslems, after the Khaljis and Tughlaq had attempted to destroy the dharma
http://www.india-forum.com/articles/45/1/S...reedom-struggle<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Vema Reddy
In 1311 Alla-ad-din Khalji sent his lover and general Maliq Kaffr to devastate the Telengana region with his ferocious army of Islam. The invasion was savage and Hindu kshatriyas of the Kakatiya, Chalukya and Chola clans fought with great valor but were routed in the battles around Warangal. The survivors took shelter in the fort of Kondapalli and held out against the Mohammedan blizzard. However, in 1316 Alla-ad-din died and the tumultuous events in Delhi triggered by the Gujarati rebellion prevented the Mohammedans from consolidating their grip over Telangana. As result there was severe local unrest and Kakatiyas under Prataparudra started re-establishing themselves. The veteran Ghazi from Afghanistan, Ghazi al Maliq Tughlaq, soon set matters right for the Mohammedans in Delhi and decided to consolidate the flagging Jihad in peninsular India. He sent his able successor Mohammed bin Tughlaq to prosecute the Jihad with unrelenting vigor in South India. M b Tughlaq charted elaborate plans for the invasion of Pune, Devagiri, Telengana and Tondaimandalam and set them rolling in 1321. After having sacked Pune in course of a year long siege of Kondana which was valiantly defended by Naga Nayaka he plowed through Devagiri and turning south east arrived in Telengana in 1322. After a prolonged, fierce see-saw encounter in which the Mohammedans constantly receiving supplies from Devagiri and Delhi the Kakatiya army of Prataparudra was vanquished at Warangal. They were forced into the defensive as the army of Islam mounted a massive encirclement attack on the fort of Rajamahendravaram. They held out for 6 months but at the end of it the Mohammedans stormed the fort and massacred the defenders to man. Prataparudra and his family was captured and sent to Delhi, but on the way he killed himself rather than go through the ordeal of converting to Islam. The grand Shri Venugopala Swami temple built by the Chalukyas was demolished by Tughlaq and he erected a mosque using the material from the temple. With that the kshatriya presence in Telengana had been smashed the the oppressive cresent banner terrorized the land.
In 1325 the responsibility of organizing defense of the dharma was taken up by the valiant shudra warrior Prolaya Vema Reddy. Son of local warlord, he describes himself "as one of the 4th varNa that emerged from the feet of mahAviShNu" who decided to rid the land of the wicked Turks after kshatriyas had all been killed for the protection of the agrahAras and brAhmaNas. Vema Reddy drawing inspiration from his deity ga~nga, who had also apparently emerged from the feet of viShNu as the fourth varNa, and the warrior god kumAra assembled a large army drawn from the peasants and herdsmen of the ravaged land. His clan had long excelled in cattle raids and honed the skills of the the rapid hit and run methods. He joined hands with two other major local landowners like Prolaya Nayaka and Kaapaya Nayaka and they formed a coalition with at least 75 other local strongmen and warlords. Reddy assembled his Hindu armies at Addanki and marched on the Tughlaq army. The Reddys apparently used biological warfare in this conflict and contaminated the water supplies leading to the Mohammedans with sewage resulting a raging dysentry which decimated the Tughlaq army. M b Tughlaq himself fell ill and retreated. As the Moslems were in disarray the Hindu army fell upon them and crushed remanants in pitched encounter at the outskirts of Warangal. The Vema Reddy realized that even though the army had departed the local Moslem Amirs and merchants were a major obstacle in restoring Hindu rule. So he conducted a series of raids destroy their trading networks and militias and extirpating the pockets of Islamic garrisons distributed over the country. In the process they were aided by the Hindu king Vira Ballaala of Dwarasamudra, who staved of attacks by the army of Islam from its head quarters in Devagiri. In 1335 M b Tughlaq sent a large force under Maqbool Iqbal to smash the Hindu revival in Telengana. However, the Reddy and Nayaka army aided by auxillaries sent by Vira Ballaala inflicted a massive defeat on them, killing 15 Moslem Amirs on the field. Vema Reddy chased Iqbal into the Warangal fort and seeing that he was hard-pressed to defend it Kaapaya Nayaka stormed the fort. Vema Reddy then moved on the fort of Kondvidu and stormed it by hacking off the head Maliq Gurjaar, the Moslem commander. Then liberated Nidadavolu, Vundi and Pithapuram after pitched battles. He then massacred an army of Jalal-ud-din Shah in a raid on Tondaimandalam even as Ballaala engaged the sultan himself. However, after a long struggle with the Sultans of Madhurai and Delhi, Ballaala finally into the hands of the Moslems. He was skinned alive and his dry skin was pegged on one of the wall of Madhurai (seen later by ibn Battuta). Undaunted Vema Reddy launched a series of daring attacks on the Moslem garrisons in the forts of Bellamkonda, Vinukonda and Nagarjunakonda and captured all of them after slaughtering the defenders. He raised his flag in Kondavidu and declared himself a Raja. His famous inscriptions from this period state: " I restored all the agraharas of Brahmins, which had been taken away by the evil Moslem kings". "I am indeed an Agastya to the ocean which was made of the Moslem". To restore the dharma he instituted major repairs to the Shrishailam rudra temple and built a flight of steps from the Krishna river to the temple on the mountain top. He also repaired the viShNu temple at Ahobilam. He also built a palace in Kondavidu for housing the women he had accquired. This became the harem for all the other subsequent Reddys. His restoration of the dharma also caused a major revival of local literature, especially under the auspices of the Telugu author Erranna, a vatsa bhArgava brAhmaNa of the middle migration of the bhArgavas. His rAmAyaNa was supposed to have been a master piece.
His successor was Anavema Reddy who continued the struggle against the army of Islam. His began by liberating Rajahmahendravaram and demolished a Mazar which had been built there on a Hindu shrine. He then scaled the fort of Korukonda with a small force at night liberated it from the Moslem garrison. Next he conquered Simhachalam fort and parts of the Kalinga kingdom.His inscription states "I the valiant member of the 4th varNa destroyed the throngs of Moslems and gathered learned brAhmaNas at this court". He built the vIra shiromanDapam in the Shrishailam temple. The Shrishailam temple was also renovated by two other great Hindu fighters, Krishnadeva Raya and Shivaji Chatrapati at a later time.
The war of independence in Telengana is one more of those largely forgotten stories of the provincial Hindu resistance in the aftermath of the Khalji-Tughlaq years.
http://manollasa.blogspot.com/2004/03/vema-reddy.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->