Madugula

Madugula, once called Vaddadi or Vaddadimadugula, was a seat of the Matsya dynasty, the southernmost vassals of the Eastern Ganga kings of Kalinga. Copperplate grants preserve the names of its rulers and their gifts: Jayanta Raju donated two villages to the temple at Simhachalam. The records reveal a dynasty whose ties reached across the hills to neighbouring courts and sacred places.

In the fourteenth century Veer Arjuna Deva allied with the Reddy chiefs in an unsuccessful attempt to escape Ganga overlordship. Inscriptions of 1427 record the marriage of Singamma, daughter of Jayanta Deva Raju II, to Vishwanath Raj of Nandapur. The Matsya ruler Singharaju later helped Vinayak Dev recover the neighbouring throne from rival claimants. After the Gajapati Empire weakened in the sixteenth century, Madugula became subordinate to Nandapur and later Jeypore.