She Ruled Under a King’s Name

Ganapatideva had no son, so he made his daughter one.

The instrument was old, and lawful. The putrika ceremony.

It was a Vedic provision by which a king without a male heir could formally make his daughter a son. For the purposes of succession. It was not a fiction of convenience invented on the spot. It was a recognised procedure, and Ganapatideva of the Kakatiyas used it.

So Rudramadevi did not rule as a queen consort or a regent. She ruled as a sovereign, and she ruled under a man's name, Rudradeva, which appears in her inscriptions and on her coinage. Her portrait sculpture shows her in the attributes of a king.

The kingdom she took

The Kakatiyas held the Telugu country from Warangal. By the mid-thirteenth century it was one of the major powers of the Deccan.

It was a state built on tank irrigation. On the cotton and steel trade of the region.

And on a distinctive political arrangement: the nayaka chiefs held land in return for military service. They were drawn substantially from communities outside the old aristocracy.