Kadiri

Kadiri lies in the dry interior of Rayalaseema, where its Lakshmi Narasimhaswamy temple drew patronage from rulers and local military chiefs. Temple inscriptions record a long sequence of gifts and construction: a Nayaka's building work is dated to 1352, Chinnamma's northern gateway to 1384, a hall sponsored by the chief of Tadpatri to 1529, and the grant of a village by Kondama Nayudu of Patnam to 1579. These endowments gave the shrine land and buildings as well as sacred standing.

The town later became a jagir granted by Aurangzeb to Parwarash Khan. Maratha intervention in 1756 and further changes of possession in 1764, 1773 and 1779 reveal the instability of eighteenth-century rule. Revenue obligations eventually brought the local chief into conflict with the East India Company: refusal to pay the assessed tribute led to his expulsion and the resumption of the jagir under Thomas Munro. Kadiri's history thus joined the durability of a temple and its endowments with repeated struggles over the town's revenues and political allegiance.