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Mauryas

c. 322 BCE – 184 BCE

The Mauryan empire of Magadha (c. 322–185 BCE) held part of the Telugu country in the 3rd century BCE. Asoka's edicts at Erragudi and Rajula-Mandagiri in Kurnool district are among the earliest written records found in the region. His conquest of Kalinga reached the coast north of the Godavari.

Satavahanas

c. 200 BCE – 225 CE

Deccan dynasty, called the Andhras in the Puranas, whose later kings ruled the Krishna valley, the Godavari delta and parts of Rayalaseema in the 2nd and early 3rd centuries CE. Its beginnings, its dates and when it reached the Telugu country are all debated.

Ikshvakus of Vijayapuri

c. 225–350 CE

Dynasty of the lower Krishna valley in the 3rd and early 4th centuries CE, with its capital at Vijayapuri in the Nagarjunakonda valley. Four kings are known from Prakrit and Sanskrit inscriptions. The kings performed Vedic sacrifices and built temples to Shiva and Karttikeya, while the royal women endowed the Buddhist monasteries of the capital.

Pallavas

c. 250–900 CE

Dynasty of Kanchi (Kanchipuram) whose kings held the Telugu country south of the Krishna for much of the 4th to 7th centuries CE. Their earliest charters, in Prakrit, were sent from Kanchi to an officer at Dhanyakataka near Amaravati. A later line issued Sanskrit grants of villages in the Guntur and Nellore country from camps such as Palakkada and Dasanapura. The Chalukyas took Vengi and the Guntur country early in the 7th century. But Pallava kings still granted villages in Nellore until about 700, and their vassals held parts of Chittoor and Rayalaseema until the Chola conquest about 900.

Vakatakas

c. 275–530 CE

Dynasty of the northern Deccan and central India, about the 3rd to the 6th century, with its heartland in Vidarbha (Berar) north of the Telugu country. Its kings married into the Gupta imperial family, and one of their princesses married the Vishnukundin king Madhavavarman. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil (1920) thought the Vakatakas ruled almost the whole of the later Hyderabad State and placed the first Vishnukundin on the throne of Vengi. A modern history of Telangana (2022) counts only the Adilabad, Nizamabad and Karimnagar country inside their lands. The Ajanta inscription credits their last great king, Harishena, with the conquest of Andhra.

Salankayanas of Vengi

c. 300–470 CE

Dynasty of the country between the Krishna and the Godavari in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, ruling from Vengipura, the modern Pedavegi near Eluru. Seven copper-plate grants name seven kings in two lines descended from Hastivarman. Most scholars identify him with the 'Hastivarman of Vengi' of Samudragupta's Allahabad inscription. Their earlier grants are in Prakrit and their later ones in Sanskrit. Their seals bear a bull, and their family god was Chitrarathasvamin.

Eastern Gangas of Kalinga

c. 498–1434 CE

Dynasty of Kalinga that ruled from Kalinganagara, now Mukhalingam in the Srikakulam district, and later from Orissa, from about the 6th century until 1434. Its early grants are dated in a Ganga era whose starting point is still disputed. The north of the Telugu country, the old Ganjam and Vizagapatam districts, was the heart of the kingdom. Their copper plates come from Chicacole, Achyutapuram, Jirjingi, Nadagam and Alamanda, and hundreds of their inscriptions in Telugu and Sanskrit survive at Mukhalingam, Srikurmam and Simhachalam. Anantavarman Chodaganga, a grandson of Kulottunga I, reigned from 1078 for about seventy years. The later kings fought the Kakatiyas across the Godavari, and their minister Kapilesvara founded the Gajapati dynasty in 1434.

Vishnukundins

c. 500–630 CE

Dynasty of the Krishna–Godavari country that ruled after the Salankayanas and before the Eastern Chalukyas. It is known from a handful of Sanskrit copper-plate grants and one stone inscription. Its kings worshipped the lord of Sriparvata, claimed eleven horse sacrifices for their greatest ruler, Madhavavarman, and married into the Vakataka royal family. Their capital in the later grants was Lendulura (Denduluru near Vengi). Scholars have dated them anywhere from the 4th to the 8th century. Most later reconstructions put the main line in the 6th century and end it with the Chalukya conquest of the early 7th, though D. C. Sircar continued it to about 670.

Chalukyas of Badami

c. 550–757 CE

Dynasty of the western Deccan that ruled from Vatapi (Badami) from about 550 to 757. Pulakesin II took Pishtapura (Pithapuram) and the Kolleru lake country about 615. He left his brother Vishnuvardhana in Vengi, where the Eastern Chalukya line began. Their grants and inscriptions show them holding the Guntur country in 631, the Kurnool and Alampur country under Vikramaditya I and his successors, and land in Nellore in 660. The Rashtrakuta Dantidurga overthrew the last king, Kirtivarman II, in the 750s.

Telugu Cholas of Renadu

c. 550–800 CE

Kings of Renandu, the country around Kadapa, from about the later 6th to the 8th century. They claimed descent from the Chola king Karikala, took the names of their Pallava and then Chalukya overlords, and ruled from Chippili and Malepadu. Their stone inscriptions at Kalamalla and Erragudipadu are among the earliest records written wholly in Telugu. None of their records is dated in an era. Three editors have placed the same king, Punyakumara, about 625, about 740 and about 800.

Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi

c. 615–1077 CE

A branch of the Chalukyas of Badami that ruled Vengi, the coastal country between the lower Godavari and Krishna, from the early 7th century. Its founder, Kubja Vishnuvardhana, was a younger brother of Pulakesin II. The kings fought the Rashtrakutas for two centuries. After about 1000 they were bound to the Cholas by marriage, and in 1070 their heir became the Chola emperor Kulottunga I. Their copper-plate grants record the length of every reign. The first Telugu literary work, Nannaya's Mahabharata, was written at their court in Rajahmundry.

Banas

c. 700–921 CE

Chiefs of the Bana or Mahabali family who ruled the hill country 'west of the Andhra road', roughly the later Chittoor district from Kolar to Kalahasti, as subordinates of the Pallava and Ganga-Pallava kings of Kanchi. Their inscriptions at Gudimallam, in Tamil and Sanskrit, run from the 8th century to Saka 827 (905), and a copper-plate grant found there gives their family tree. In the late 9th century an outpost of theirs reached Pottipadu in the Cuddapah country. They fought the Nolamba-Pallavas at Soremati, and soon after 900 the Chola king Parantaka I uprooted them and gave their country to a Ganga prince. A Bana chief still ruled near Podili in Nellore in 968.

Chalukyas of Vemulavada

c. 750–973 CE

A family of Chalukya chiefs who ruled the Sabbi country of northern Telangana, today's Karimnagar district, from their capital Vemulavada (Lembulavataka). They were feudatories of the Rashtrakutas from about 750 to about 970. Their records begin with Vinayaditya-Yuddhamalla, who is said to have bathed his elephants in oil at Podana (Bodhan). Arikesari II (about 930–955) was the patron of the Kannada poet Pampa, and Somadeva Suri wrote his Yasastilaka in 959 in the town of Arikesari's son. Their rule ended when the Chalukyas of Kalyani took Telangana before 973.

Rashtrakutas of Malkhed

c. 753–973 CE

Dynasty of the Deccan that overthrew the Chalukyas of Badami in the 750s and ruled from Manyakheta (Malkhed) until 973. In the Telugu country they took over the Chalukya lands of the Alampur and Kurnool country and fought the Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi for two centuries. They governed much of Telangana through feudatories such as the Chalukyas of Vemulavada. Their inscriptions are found from Alampur and Bodhan to Warangal and Nalgonda, and Krishna III held most of the Cuddapah country. Taila II of the Chalukyas of Kalyani overthrew the last king, Kakka II, in 973.

Nolamba-Pallavas

c. 800–974 CE

Branch of the Pallavas that ruled Nolambavadi, the 'Thirty-two Thousand' province of the Chitradurga and Tumkur country and most of the Anantapur district, from the 9th to the late 10th century, with Henjeru (Hemavati, Madakasira taluk) as a chief town. First feudatories of the Rashtrakutas and Gangas, they became powerful under Mahendra I, who claimed to have destroyed the Bana race. Their inscriptions in Anantapur are at Hemavati, Hindupur, Manepalle and Kambaduru, dated from 853 to 965. The Ganga Marasimha (died 974) took the title 'death to the Nolamba race'; later the Nolamba-Pallava title passed to chiefs under the Cholas and Western Chalukyas.

Vaidumbas

c. 800–1102 CE

Family of chiefs of the Madanapalle–Rayachoti country who, in the 9th and 10th centuries, ruled Renandu, the old Telugu Chola country of the Cuddapah region. Their hero-stones are in early Telugu and Kannada. Under Ganda-Trinetra they fought beside the Banas against the Nolambas and Gangas at Soremati. Later Vaidumba chiefs served the Nolamba Iriva-Nolamba and the Rashtrakuta Krishna III, married into the Chola royal family, and from the reign of Rajaraja I were Chola vassals; one ruled near Gudur in Nellore in 992. A Vaidumba princess was the mother of the Kalinga Ganga king Vajrahasta. By the late 13th century the Hoysalas held their old country.

Chalukyas of Mudigonda

c. 890–1218 CE

A family of Chalukya chiefs named after Mudigonda (Mudugondu) near Khammam. They held the Manchikonda district and the Koravi (Kuravi) country, between Vengi and Vemulavada, from the late 9th century to about 1200. They served the Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi, later the Chalukyas of Kalyani, and lost their lands to the Kakatiyas. They are known from two copper-plate grants (the Mogalcheruvula grant of Kusumayudha IV and the Kukkunur plates of Kusumaditya), a stone inscription at Koravi and passing references in other dynasties' records.

Western Chalukyas of Kalyani

c. 973–1189 CE

A dynasty of the western Deccan that overthrew the Rashtrakutas in 973 and ruled from Kalyana (Kalyani) until about 1189. Telangana was part of their kingdom. Kannada inscriptions of their reigns run from Korapolu in the Medak district (973) to Alampur, Gangapuram, Kolanupaka and Hanamkonda, where the early Kakatiya chiefs, the Polavasa chiefs and the Kandur Chodas served them as feudatories. They fought the Cholas for Vengi for a century, and Vikramaditya VI was recognised as king there from 1118 to about 1126. After the Kalachuris took over in the 1150s, the Kakatiyas declared their own sovereignty in 1163.

Cholas of Tanjore

c. 985–1268 CE

The imperial Chola dynasty of Tanjore (Thanjavur) and Gangaikondacholapuram in the Tamil country, overlords of much of the Telugu country from about 1000 to the 12th century. Rajaraja I restored the Eastern Chalukya Saktivarman I in Vengi about 999 and married his daughter to Saktivarman's brother Vimaladitya. Rajendra I waited on the Godavari while his general marched to the Ganges, and Virarajendra fought the Western Chalukyas at Bezwada. In 1070 the Eastern Chalukya heir became the Chola emperor Kulottunga I, whose sons governed Vengi until 1118. After a Western Chalukya occupation, Vikrama-Chola recovered the coast, but by the mid-12th century Chola rule north of the Krishna was nominal. In the south, the Telugu Choda chiefs of Nellore and Pottappi acknowledged the Chola king until the dynasty ended in the 1260s.

Kandur Chodas

c. 1060–1282 CE

Telugu Choda chiefs of the Kandurunadu country, in the present Mahbubnagar and Nalgonda districts of Telangana. They called themselves lords of Kodur, of the solar race and of the lineage of Karikala. Feudatories of the Western Chalukyas of Kalyani from about 1060, they governed the Kollipake province in 1088 and held Panugallu near Nalgonda. Their quarrels in the 1120s–1150s drew in the Kakatiyas Prola II and Rudradeva, who put Udaya Choda on the Panugallu throne, drove out his kinsman Bhima and annexed the country. The family lived on as Kakatiya subordinates, and its last known record is of 1282.

Haihayas of Kona and Palnadu

c. 1073–1364 CE

Two families of chiefs in the Telugu country who claimed descent from the legendary Haihaya king Kartavirya. The Kona chiefs ruled Konamandala, the Godavari delta, from the late 11th century to the 14th, under the Chola–Chalukya kings and the Velanati Chodas. They joined in the war in which the Kakatiya Prola II was killed. In the Palnadu, Haihaya chiefs of the Chagi family appear as feudatories of the Western Chalukyas from 1111. The Palnadu chiefs are the kings of the Telugu heroic ballad of the Palnati Viralu, whose war, fought out at Karempudi, has been dated anywhere from 1080 to 1386.

Velanati Chodas

c. 1076–1209 CE

A family of chiefs of Velanadu, the Chandavolu (Tsandavolu) country in the western Krishna delta. They rose as officers of the Eastern Chalukya and Chola kings and governed the Vengi country for the Chola emperors from the reign of Kulottunga I. Their records run from 1076 at Chebrolu to 1206. Gonka II claimed rule from Kalahasti to the Mahendra mountain, and Rajendra Choda II was the chief power on the coast in the 1170s. The Kakatiya Ganapatideva defeated the last of them, Prithvisvara, and had annexed Velanadu by 1209.

Kotas of Dharanikota

c. 1100–1276 CE

A family of chiefs of Amaravati–Dharanikota on the south bank of the Krishna, lords of the 'Six-thousand' country (Konnatavadi). Robert Sewell traced their line from about 1100, and their inscriptions run to the 1270s. Keta II, who probably came to power in 1182, still gave lamps and villages to the Buddha at Amaravati. Related by marriage to the Velanati Chodas and the Kakatiyas, they were brought under Kakatiya rule about 1185. Kota Beta married Ganapamba, daughter of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva, and she ruled the family's lands as a widow in the 1250s.

Telugu Chodas of Pottapi and Nellore

c. 1120–1316 CE

A family of Telugu chiefs who called themselves Madhurantaka Pottapi-Cholas and Ganda-Gopalas and claimed descent from the Chola king Karikala. They ruled the Pakanadu country of Nellore and southern Kadapa (Cuddapah) from Pottapi and then Nellore, from the early 12th century to about 1316. First vassals of the Cholas, they took Kanchi under Tikka I and his successors. They then passed under the Kakatiyas, who restored Manumasiddhi II, the patron of the poet Tikkana. A related branch ruled Konidena in the Guntur country.

Kakatiyas

c. 1163–1323 CE

Dynasty of Anumakonda (Hanamkonda) and Orugallu (Warangal). The Kakatiyas were Rashtrakuta and then Western Chalukya feudatories from the tenth century. They declared their sovereignty under Rudradeva in 1163, and under Ganapatideva they ruled the Telugu country from Telangana to the coast. Rudramadevi reigned as king under the name Rudradeva, and her grandson Prataparudra fell to the Delhi Sultanate in the 1320s. Their rule rested on allied chiefs, nayaka commanders holding land for military service, and village assemblies. It is remembered for its tanks, its temples, the Motupalli sea-trade edict and its court literature.

Hoysalas

c. 1173–1343 CE

Dynasty of Dorasamudra (Halebid) in the Mysore country, at first vassals of the Western Chalukyas and independent from the time of Vishnuvardhana in the 12th century. Ballala II took Nolambavadi; his inscriptions are at Parigi (1178) and Hemavati (1205–06) in the Anantapur district, and he claimed Gooty. His successors fought the Seunas, the Pandyas and the Telugu Chodas for the Chola country, and in the later 13th century held the Rayachoti country. Ballala III lost Dorasamudra to Malik Kafur in 1311 but still ruled parts of Anantapur to 1340; a Kakatiya general defeated him at Kanchi. He was killed fighting the Sultan of Madurai in 1342.

Pandyas

c. 1251–1311 CE

Ancient Tamil dynasty of Madurai whose second empire, in the 13th century, reached the Telugu country. About 1260–63 Jatavarman Sundara Pandya I defeated the Telugus, their Telugu Choda allies and the Kakatiya Ganapati at Mudugur (Muttukuru in P. V. Parabrahma Sastry's account), drove them to the Krishna, and had himself anointed at Nellore and Kanchi. A later Sundara Pandya, crowned at Nellore, endowed a hall in its Ranganayaka temple, and Pandya princes held Nandalur in the Cuddapah country from 1286 to 1293. The Kakatiyas recovered Nellore, and in 1317 a Kakatiya general restored a Sundara Pandya to his throne. Marco Polo's 'Sonder Bandi Davar' of Ma'bar was identified by Henry Yule and Robert Caldwell with a Sundara Pandya.

Delhi Sultanate in the Telugu country

c. 1303–1344 CE

The Khalji and Tughluq sultans of Delhi sent five armies against the Kakatiya capital Warangal between 1303 and 1323. Malik Kafur's siege of 1309–10 and Khusrau Khan's of 1318 ended in tribute. Ulugh Khan, the future Muhammad bin Tughluq, took the city at his second attempt, sent Prataparudra towards Delhi and renamed Warangal Sultanpur. For a little over a decade Telingana (Tilang) was a province of the sultanate, governed for a time by the Telugu convert Malik Maqbul. Then a rising under Kapaya Nayaka, called Kanya Naik by Barani, drove the Delhi officers out.

Musunuri Nayakas

c. 1325–1368 CE

A family of Telugu military chiefs (nayakas) who led the recovery of the Telugu country from the Delhi Sultanate after the fall of Warangal in 1323. Prolaya Nayaka, from his hill capital at Rekapalli on the Godavari, freed the coast and gave back the Brahmin villages seized by the Delhi officers. His cousin Kapaya Nayaka took Warangal in the later 1330s and ruled as 'lord of the Andhra country'. He helped the founders of the Bahmani kingdom against Delhi, then lost Kaulas and Golconda to the Bahmanis, giving up the turquoise throne in 1365. He was overthrown by the Recherla Velamas in about 1368.

Reddis of Kondaveedu

c. 1325–1424 CE

Telugu dynasty of the Panta Reddi family. It rose on the coast after the fall of the Kakatiyas and ruled for about a hundred years, from about 1325 to the 1420s, first from Addanki and then from the hill fortress of Kondavidu. Its six kings, from Prolaya Vema to Racha Vema, held the country between Srisailam and the sea and at times the Godavari delta. They built the flights of steps at Srisailam and Ahobilam, fought the Recherla Velamas, Vijayanagara and the Bahmanis, and kept a court where Errapragada and Srinatha wrote. Under Kumaragiri the eastern half of the kingdom became a separate state at Rajahmundry.

Recherla Velamas

c. 1336–1475 CE

A family of Telugu warrior chiefs of the Recherla line and the Velama (Padmanayaka) community who rose after the fall of the Kakatiyas. Singama Nayaka's sons Anapota and Mada overthrew the Musunuri chief Kapaya Nayaka about 1368. They ruled Telangana from the hill forts of Rachakonda and Devarakonda for about a century, between the Bahmanis, the Reddis, Vijayanagara and the Gajapatis of Orissa. The king Singabhupala wrote the Sanskrit Rasarnavasudhakara, and tradition links the poets Srinatha and Potana with their court.

Vijayanagara Empire

c. 1336–1646 CE

The South Indian empire founded about 1336 by the brothers Harihara and Bukka on the Tungabhadra. The Sangama, Saluva, Tuluva and Aravidu dynasties ruled it in turn. It held Rayalaseema and the Nellore country from the fourteenth century. It fought the Reddis, the Velamas, the Bahmanis and the Gajapatis of Orissa for the Telugu coast, and under Krishnadeva Raya it took Udayagiri, Kondavidu and Kondapalli and marched to Simhachalam. Its court made Telugu a language of high poetry. After the defeat of 1565 its kings ruled from Penukonda and Chandragiri, until Golconda took the last of the Telugu districts in the 1640s.

Bahmanis

1347–1527 CE

Sultans of the Deccan (1347–1527) who ruled from Gulbarga and, from the 1420s, from Bidar. Their founder won his throne with troops sent by the ruler of Warangal. His successors took Kaulas, Bhongir and Golconda from the Telugu chiefs, sacked Warangal (in 1422, 1424 or 1425, by different accounts) and held western Telangana as the province of Bidar. They fought the Musunuri and Recherla nayakas, the Reddis, Vijayanagara and the Gajapatis of Orissa, and held the coast from Rajahmundry to Kondapalli and Kondavidu in the 1470s. Mahmud Gawan split the province of Telingana between Rajahmundry and Warangal. Its last governor, Sultan Quli, founded the Qutb Shahi kingdom of Golconda.

Reddis of Rajahmundry

c. 1386–1448 CE

The eastern Reddi kingdom, centred on Rajahmundry and the Godavari delta. It grew out of the Kondavidu kingdom when Kumaragiri Reddi gave 'the eastern country' to his minister and brother-in-law Kataya Vema in the 1380s. After Kataya Vema's death about 1414–16, his kinsman Allada Reddi fought off the Telugu Choda Annadeva, the Kondavidu king and a Bahmani army. Allada's sons Allaya Vema and Virabhadra ruled jointly until the 1440s, when the Gajapati Kapilesvara of Orissa took the delta. Srinatha wrote his last poems at their court.

Gajapatis of Orissa

c. 1434–1541 CE

The Suryavamsi kings of Orissa, 'lords of elephants', who ruled from Cuttack from 1434–35 to about 1541. Kapilendra (Kapilesvara) took the throne of the last Eastern Ganga king. He conquered the Reddi kingdoms of Rajahmundry and Kondavidu, and sent his son Hamvira and his nephew Raghudeva into Telangana, where they took Warangal in 1460. He carried his arms down the coast towards the Kaveri. His son Purushottama lost the Godavari–Krishna country to the Bahmanis and won it back. Prataparudra lost everything south of the Godavari or the Krishna to Krishnadeva Raya of Vijayanagara in 1513–19, and the coastal districts fell to Golconda in the following decades.

Adil Shahis of Bijapur

c. 1489–1686 CE

Sultans of Bijapur (about 1489–1686), founded by Yusuf Adil Khan, a governor who broke away from the Bahmanis. They fought Vijayanagara for a century over Raichur and Mudgal, and joined the league that defeated it in 1565. Then they advanced south of the Tungabhadra: they took Adoni in 1568, Kurnool early in the seventeenth century and Penukonda in 1652. In the 1630s–50s they overran the Karnatak and divided it with Golconda. They held the western Telugu uplands through Abyssinian governors, such as Siddi Masud of Adoni, and through tributary poligars, until Aurangzeb took Bijapur in 1686.

Shitab Khan of Warangal

c. 1504–1516 CE

Short-lived Telugu principality of the chief Shitab Khan, or Sitapati, between the fall of the Bahmani power and the rise of Golconda. He was a former officer of the Bahmanis. By his pillar inscription, he took Warangal fort from the Muslims on 21 January 1504. He held it with Khammam, Bellamkonda and other hill forts, and restored the Kakatiya family goddess and a Krishna image to their temples. The Kistna manual thought him a vassal of the Gajapatis of Orissa, with whose prince he fought at Palanchinur. Sultan Quli Qutb Shah of Golconda took his forts. The sources date the conquest of Warangal anywhere from 1512 to 1525.

Qutb Shahis

c. 1518–1687 CE

Sultans of Golconda (1518–1687) who ruled Telangana and, from the 1520s, the coast between the Krishna and the Godavari. Later they ruled the northern coast and the Guntur country, and in the 17th century much of the Karnatak to the south. The founder, Sultan Quli, had governed Telingana for the Bahmanis. Ibrahim joined the alliance that destroyed Vijayanagara in 1565, and Muhammad Quli founded Hyderabad about 1589–91. From 1636 the kings paid tribute to the Mughals, and in 1687 Aurangzeb took Golconda by treachery after an eight months' siege. Persian nobles held the high offices, but Telugu soldiers held the forts and Brahmin accountants kept the revenue. Under the last king two Brahmin brothers, Madanna and Akkanna, ran the state.

Dutch East India Company

c. 1613–1825 CE

The Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) traded on the Telugu coast from the early seventeenth century until 1825. Its factories at Masulipatam, Palakollu (from 1652), Draksharama, Jagannathapuram (Cocanada), Narasapur and Bimlipatam bought and dyed cotton cloth for its trade in the Indonesian islands. It coined money at Bimlipatam and Jagannathapuram. The Dutch seized Masulipatam from the King of Golconda for a time in 1686. But their settlements were trading stations held under farmans (royal orders) and the grants of the Raja of Vizianagaram, not territories. The English took them in 1781 and 1795 and handed them back in 1785 and 1818. They passed finally to the English East India Company on 1 June 1825.

Mughals in the Telugu country

1636–1724 CE

The Mughal emperors were overlords of Golconda from 1636, when Abdullah Qutb Shah accepted Shah Jahan as his suzerain. They ruled the whole Telugu country from 1687, when Aurangzeb took Golconda and made the kingdom the subah of Haidarabad. The province was governed through a subahdar at Hyderabad, faujdars in the districts and the old Telugu revenue officers, the deshmukhs and deshpandes. The coast formed the Northern Sarkars and the south the Haidarabadi Karnatak. Maratha raids, a prince's rebellion at Hyderabad in 1708–09 and the rising of the toddy-seller Pap Rai marked the years of decline. In 1724 Nizam-ul-Mulk defeated and killed the subahdar Mubariz Khan at Shakar Kheda and founded the Asaf Jahi state.

Marathas and the Telugu country

1677–1818 CE

The Maratha kings, and after them the Peshwas of Poona, entered Telugu history from the west and south. Shahji served Bijapur in the Karnatak. In 1677 his son Shivaji allied himself with Golconda, was received at Hyderabad by Abul Hasan Qutb Shah and his ministers Madanna and Akkanna, went on pilgrimage to Srisailam, and marched past Kurnool and through Cuddapah to Jinji. Bijapur's rights over the Bellary and Anantapur country were made over to him in 1680. From 1719 the Marathas claimed chauth and sardeshmukhi from the Deccan provinces, including Hyderabad. The Peshwas fought the Nizams at Palkhed (1728), Udgir (1760), Rakshasbhuvan (1763) and Kharda (1795). The Bhonsles of Nagpur raided the Carnatic and the Northern Circars, and in Rayalaseema the Marathas held Gurramkonda, Punganur and Penukonda at times between 1743 and 1774. Their power in the region ended with the Mysore treaties of 1792 and 1799, the British treaties of 1802–04 and the fall of the Peshwa in 1818.

Nawabs of Kurnool

c. 1690–1839 CE

A Pathan family of the Panni tribe who held Kurnool, where the Tungabhadra meets the Handri, as a jagir (land grant) from the Mughal conquest of the 1680s until the British annexed it in 1839. The Mughal general Daud Khan Panni received the jagir. His kinsman Ibrahim Khan seized the fort in 1715 and died fighting the first Nizam in 1724. Himmat Bahadur Khan helped to kill two Nizams, Nasir Jang and Muzaffar Jang, in 1750–51 and died in the second fight, after which the French stormed Kurnool. His brother Ranmast (Munawwar) Khan won it back in 1752 and paid tribute to the Nizam and to Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan. In 1800 the Nizam gave the tribute to the East India Company. The last Nawab, Ghulam Rasul Khan, was deposed in 1839 after troops found a secret store of arms in his fort, and Kurnool became a British district.

Nawabs of the Carnatic (Arcot)

c. 1710–1801 CE

The Mughal and then Asaf Jahi governors of the Carnatic below the Ghats, the coast from Guntur to the Coleroon, who ruled from Arcot from about 1710 until 1801. Their Telugu districts were Nellore, Ongole and the Palnad, with the jagir of Udayagiri and the tributary poligars of Venkatagiri and Kalahasti. The first house, the Navayats of Saadatullah Khan, gave way in 1744 to Anwar-ud-din Khan, who was killed at Ambur in 1749. His son Muhammad Ali Walajah won the Nawabship with English help against Chanda Sahib and the French, while his brother Najib-ullah held Nellore and rebelled. Deep in debt to the East India Company and to private lenders, Muhammad Ali assigned his revenues to the Company in 1781. The Company managed the country in 1790–92, and in 1792 he bound himself to pay for its troops. After a secret correspondence with Tipu Sultan came to light, Azim-ud-daula handed over the government of the Carnatic in 1801, and Nellore and Ongole became a British district.

Nawabs of Cuddapah

c. 1714–1779 CE

Pathan (Miana) chiefs who governed the Cuddapah country, first for the Mughals and then for the Nizams, from Cuddapah and the fort of Sidhout. The Cuddapah gazetteer dates the rule of Abdul Nabi Khan from 1714. He held Sidhout, Gandikota, Cumbum and Gurramkonda, made the poligar of Punganur pay him tribute and raided the Baramahal. A Nawab of Cuddapah took part in the killing of Nasir Jang in 1750 and in the attack on Muzaffar Jang in 1751. In 1757 the Maratha general Balwant Rao defeated and killed the Nawab Abdul Majid Khan and took Gurramkonda. After a disputed succession, Abdul Halim Khan ruled from 1761 until Haidar Ali conquered him in 1779 and gave the country to Mir Sahib. It passed to the Nizam in 1792 and to the East India Company in 1800.

Asaf Jahis (Nizams of Hyderabad)

1724–1948 CE

The dynasty of the Nizams of Hyderabad (1724–1948). It was founded by the Mughal viceroy Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah, who made himself independent in the Deccan after defeating Mubariz Khan at Shakar Kheda in 1724. After his death the French and the English backed rival heirs. The Northern Circars passed to the French in 1753 and to the English in 1766, and the Ceded Districts of Rayalaseema to the East India Company in 1800, leaving Telangana as the Telugu heart of the Nizam's Dominions. Bound to the British by the subsidiary alliance of 1798–1800, the Nizams governed through ministers such as Chandu Lal and Salar Jung I. They assigned Berar to the British in 1853 and leased it in 1902. Mir Osman Ali Khan's reign brought Osmania University and the rebuilding of Hyderabad, and his government ended in September 1948.

Banganapalle State

c. 1724–1948 CE

A small Shia nawabi state of about 255 square miles round the town of Banganapalle, in the Erramala valley of the Kurnool district. One family held it from the early eighteenth century until 1948. Muhammad Beg Khan, the Mughal killedar (fort commander), became a petty Nawab when the first Nizam made himself independent, and the Nizam confirmed the jagir (land grant). Tipu Sultan occupied it from 1783 until the family, with the Nizam's troops, won it back at Tammadapalle in 1790. In 1800 the Nizam transferred his control to the East India Company, which took no tribute. The Madras government managed the indebted jagir from the 1820s or 1830s until 1848, and restored it under a sanad of 1849. The ruler received the hereditary title of Nawab in 1876. The Madras government took over the administration on 23 February 1948.

Morari Rao of Gooty

c. 1741–1776 CE

A small Maratha state of the Ghorpade family, centred on the hill fortress of Gooty in the Anantapur country. Morari Rao Ghorpade held it from the 1740s until Haidar Ali took it in 1776. The first Nizam recognised it as a dependency of the subahdar (governor) of the Deccan. It took in Penukonda, Madakasira, Kodikonda and Tadpatri and took tribute from the poligars of the Anantapur country, while Morari Rao's horsemen fought for hire in the Carnatic wars. Haidar took Penukonda and Madakasira in 1762. Morari Rao won back some forts after the Maratha peace of 1765 and fought with the English against Haidar in 1768. He lost Gooty after a long siege and died a prisoner at Kabbaldurga. His family's line survived at Sandur.

French East India Company

1750–1759 CE

The French Compagnie des Indes in the Telugu country. It traded at Masulipatam (Machilipatnam) from 1669 and at Yanam from before 1750. Dupleix and Bussy helped the Nizams Muzaffar Jang and Salabat Jang to the throne. In return the Company received Masulipatam and its country (1750), the Kondavid country (1751–52) and the four Northern Circars of Mustafanagar (Kondapalli), Ellore, Rajahmundry and Chicacole (1753), to pay for Bussy's army in the Deccan. Bussy governed the Circars through the Raja of Vizianagaram and the zamindars. In 1757 he destroyed Bobbili and took the English factories. Colonel Forde's victory at Condore (Chandurti) in December 1758 and his storm of Masulipatam in April 1759 ended French rule on the coast. By the treaty of May 1759 Salabat Jang shut the French out of the Deccan. Yanam, taken and given back several times, stayed French until 1954.

East India Company

1759–1858 CE

The English East India Company in the Telugu country, from its first landing on the coast in 1611 to the Crown's take-over in 1858. For a century and a half it traded through factories at Masulipatam, Nizampatnam, Madapollam, Viravasaram, Vizagapatam, Injaram and Bendamurlanka, under farmans of the Golconda kings and the Mughals. Its fort at Madras stood on land granted in 1639 through the Nayaka Damarla Venkatadri. After Forde drove out the French it received the Masulipatam country (1759), the five Northern Circars by the emperor's grant of 1765 and the treaties with the Nizam of 1766 and 1768, Guntur (1788), the Ceded Districts of Rayalaseema (1800) and Nellore with the Carnatic (1801). It governed through Chiefs and Councils, then Collectors. It settled the coastal zamindars permanently in 1802–03, and the Rayalaseema cultivators under Thomas Munro's ryotwari system. It broke the power of the Vizianagaram raja at Padmanabham (1794) and of the poligars. After the Guntur famine of 1832–33 it built the Godavari and Krishna anicuts.

Mysore under Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan

1761–1799 CE

Haidar Ali, who made himself master of Mysore in 1761, and his son Tipu Sultan, who ruled until 1799, carried Mysore's frontier north and east into the Telugu country. Haidar took Penukonda and Madakasira from the Maratha Morari Rao in 1762, and recovered Gurramkonda through his brother-in-law Mir Sahib in 1768. He took Bellary in 1775 and Gooty in 1776, and conquered the Nawab of Cuddapah in 1779. The Nawab of Kurnool and the poligars of the Bellary and Anantapur country became his tributaries. Their wars with the Marathas, the Nizam and the East India Company were fought partly over these districts. By the treaty of 1792 Tipu ceded Cuddapah, Gurramkonda, Bellary and the Tadpatri country to the Nizam. After Tipu's death at Seringapatam in 1799 the Nizam took Gooty, Penukonda and the rest. In 1800 he ceded both gains to the Company as the Ceded Districts.

British Crown (Madras Presidency)

1858–1947 CE

The government of the Telugu districts of the Madras Presidency by the British Crown, from the transfer of the East India Company's territories in 1858 to independence in 1947. Under a Governor in Council at Madras, the coast and Rayalaseema were ruled through Collectors, a Board of Revenue, district and taluk boards and municipalities. The districts were redrawn (Godavari and Kistna in 1859, Anantapur in 1882, Guntur in 1904, Chittoor in 1911, West Godavari in 1925), and the Nizam ceded the Bhadrachalam and Rekapalli taluks in 1860. The ryotwari lands were surveyed and settled, and the inams registered by the Inam Commission. The great zamindaris of Vizianagaram, Bobbili, Pithapuram, Venkatagiri, Kalahasti and Karvetinagar kept their permanent settlements. The Godavari and Krishna deltas were irrigated, and railways reached Bezwada and Waltair. The great famine of 1876–78 emptied the Ceded Districts. The Rampa rising of 1879–80 was the last that needed regular troops in the Presidency.