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attributing the same to the new set up of the Gajapati rule and Goparāju Ramanna's orders fabricated some account called Kavile which was maintained by the successive Karanams. The common usage of the three thrones, namely the Gajapati of Orissa, the Narapati of Vijayanagar and the Ašvapati of the Deccan Muslim rulers came into vogue when the respective imperial powers came into prominence after the fall of the Kākatiyas in A. D. 1323. The Gajapatis particularly dominated the arena of the Deccan politics only after the fall of the Reddis at Kondavidu, i. e. a century later. It was in about A. D. 1454 the actual conquest of Kondavidu, and other forts of coastal Andhra was effected by Kapileswara Gajapati. Thus we notice three clear stages in the recording of these accounts of the Guntur district.
1. In A. D. 1134-5 Velanați Gonka II driving out the Western Chalukyas started his system of administration, which event became the traditional starting point for claiming the hereditary Karinikams.
2. In A. D. 1454 the Gajapati king's minister, perhaps named Goparaju Ramanna actually introduced hereditary Karinikams with fresh records called Kaviles or dandakaviles.
3. Between A. D. 1802 and 1820 Mackenzie surveyors collected these accounts, summing up all the previous written and unwritten matter maintained by the Karanams.
In the second and third stages the authors of the accounts, that is, the Karanams tampered with the originals by making manipulations and even forgeries for their personal ends to retain the miräsis and ināms. We come across such forged copper plate charters with wrong dates prepared to get the grants renewed by the changing governments. In the present state of our knowledge it is difficult to assess the magnitude of the historical truth missed the pen of the Karanam, or that of the misleading manipulations that crept into his brain during this long period extending from A. D. 1134 to 1820, particularly when the records were renewed more than once. Consequently, the information supplied in these Kaifiyats apart from superstitious myths is full of chronological and genealogical discrepancies besides ambiguous and confusing statements. While giving the successive rule of the kings or Jamindars these compilers often fail to mention the mutual relationship between the members of a family and even if they give such relation, the statements are often inconsistent. This causes some difficulty in formulating an authentic account of the Jamindars.
Nevertheless, these records by way of certain uniform statements furnish us fairly reliable information regarding political, social and religious aspects particularly of the late medieval period beginning from A.D.1515 when Krishnadevaraya, the Vijayanagar emperor wrested the coastal districts from the Gajapati king Pratāparudra. The
