Mallampalli Somasekhara Sarma

Mallampalli Somasekhara Sarma (1891 – 7 January 1963) was an Indian historian, who worked at the Andhra University.[1]

The Mallampalli Somasekhara Sarma Historical Research Foundation was established in Visakhapatnam in honour of Sarma. It awards annual memorial awards in his name to acclaimed historians of Andhra.[2]

Works
  • A Forgotten Chapter of Andhra History (History of the Musunūri Nāyaks), Andhra University, 1945.[3]
  • History of Reddi Kingdoms (circa. 1325 A.D. to circa 1448 A.D.), Andhra University, 1946.[1]

The two books Forgotten Chapter and History of Reddi Kingdoms deal with the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Kakatiya Empire, the former covering the history of Musunuri Nayakas and the latter the history of Reddi kingdoms.

Reception

Sarma hypothesised that the Reddi kings were subordinate to the Musunuri chiefs during their inception:

The Reḍḍi kings of Koṇḍavīḍu, who began as the subordinates of the Musunūri chiefs of Rēkapalli and Waraṅgal, soon became independent, and played an important role during the revival of Hindu supremacy in the post-Kakatiya period.[4]

The theory was criticised by historian M. Rama Rao, who noted that the founder of the Reddi line, Prolaya Vema Reddi, predated Musunuri Kapaya Nayaka.[5] He concludes:

It is thus clear that various parts of Andhradeśa were rescued from the Muslims at various dates—Rajahmundry and the coastal region in 1324, the territory south of the Krishna in 1325 AD, the Rekapalli region in 1330 and western Andhra between 1330-35 AD. Several individuals—Prolaya Vema Reddi, Musunuri Prolaya nayaka, and Arviti Somadeva liberated these parts and they had no political connection with each other.

Modern historian Cynthia Talbot has warned against taking the inscriptional evidence at face value.[6]

One way a warrior could assume the Kakatiya aura was through simple juxtaposition of his exploits with those of the Kakatiyas in the introductory portion of an inscription. We find this strategy employed in the Vilasa grant of Prolaya Nayaka, the Musunuri chief.

She also demonstrated that Musunuri Kapaya Nayaka being a lord of 75 subordinates was a formulaic device.[7]

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References
  1. Sarma, M. Somasekhara (1946), History of the Reddi Kingdoms (circa. 1325 A.D. to Circa 1448 A.D.), Andhra University, title page
  2. Mallampalli Somasekhara Sarma Historical Research Foundation Historian felicitated, The Hindu, 10 December 2015.
  3. Excerpts from worldcat database
  4. Sarma, Mallampalli Somasekhara (1948), History of the Reddi Kingdoms (circa. 1325 A.D. to Circa 1448 A.D.), Andhra University, p. v
  5. Rao, M. Rama (1947), "The Fall of Warangal and After", Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 10: 292–297, JSTOR 44137150
  6. Talbot, Cynthia (2001), Pre-colonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra, Oxford University Press, pp. 177–178, ISBN 978-0-19803-123-9
  7. Talbot, Cynthia (1994), "Political intermediaries in Kakatiya Andhra, 1175-1325", The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 31 (3): 261–289: For instance, Rudrama Devi was mentioned to have had 75 subordinate chiefs, Prataparudra 77 subordinates, Velugoti chiefs 77 subordinates, Induluris 72 subordinates, etc.
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