Rani Rudrama Devi

Rudrama Devi was a princess of the Kakatiya kingdom in southern India. Her father had no son to take the throne, so he raised her as a warrior and named her Rudradeva.

She learned to ride, to use a sword, and to lead soldiers. When she became queen, some proud nobles laughed — a woman on the throne?

But Rudrama led her army herself, defeated invaders from the north and the south, and ruled Warangal for nearly thirty years. Farmers loved her because she built tanks and forts to keep them safe.

Rudrama Devi (r. c. 1263–1289) was one of the very few women to rule as a sovereign monarch in medieval India. Her father Ganapati Deva of the Kakatiya dynasty had her performed the male initiation rite so she could inherit the throne of Warangal.

She adopted the regnal name Rudradeva Maharaja and appeared on inscriptions and coins as a male ruler, while also being openly known as a queen.

She fought off challenges from the Yadavas of Devagiri, the Cholas and rebellious nobles, personally leading cavalry in battle. The Venetian traveller Marco Polo, writing shortly after her reign, praised her as a 'lover of justice, of equity and of peace.' She strengthened the Kakatiya army by recruiting warriors from farming castes, expanded the great tank-irrigation system of the Deccan, and finally died in battle around 1289 defending her kingdom.