Kakatiya dynasty

The Kakatiya dynasty was a Telugu ruling house that dominated the eastern Deccan between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, with its capital at Orugallu, now Warangal. Its lands stretched across much of present-day Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, with parts of eastern Karnataka, northern Tamil Nadu and southern Odisha. Early rulers served the Rashtrakutas and Western Chalukyas for more than two centuries before Rudradeva asserted sovereignty in 1163. Ganapati Deva expanded the kingdom in the 1230s, bringing the fertile Godavari and Krishna deltas under Kakatiya control, and his daughter Rudrama Devi, one of the few queen regnants in Indian history, defended the realm against the Yadavas of Devagiri. Alauddin Khalji's invasion of 1303 ended in disaster for Delhi, but the siege of Warangal in 1310 reduced the kingdom to a tributary. It finally fell in 1323 to Ulugh Khan. The Kakatiyas left great irrigation tanks and the Ramappa temple. Their reservoirs and the Ramappa temple, now a World Heritage Site, remain among the finest monuments of Telugu architecture.