Study guides

One guide for each period of Telugu history, for students preparing for school, college and competitive exams, and for teachers planning a class. Each guide gathers the key dates, main points, terms, people and places, debates and practice questions from the pages of that period, with a lesson plan for teachers.

This guide organises pages on this site; every fact is on the linked pages with its sources.

1. 1Prehistory & megalithic culturesbefore 300 BCELong before the first inscriptions, people lived in the river valleys and on the rocky hills of the Telugu country. They left two kinds of evidence, stone tools and megalithic burials built of large stones. The era page follows the surveyors and excavators who recorded these remains between the 1860s and the 1930s, when there was no way to date them. Written history begins in the 3rd century BCE, with Asoka's edicts at Erragudi and the Bhattiprolu relic caskets.13 dates · 12 terms · 3 quiz questions
2. 2Mauryas & Satavahanasc. 300 BCE – 225 CEBetween about the 3rd century BCE and the early 3rd century CE, the Telugu country passes into recorded history. Asoka's edicts in Kurnool district and Buddhist relic inscriptions in the Krishna delta are its first written records. By the 2nd century CE the Satavahanas ruled the Krishna valley, where Amaravati and other stupas flourished. Scholars still argue over the dynasty's dates, so the era page sets out their main views side by side.13 dates · 15 terms · 131 quiz questions
3. 3Ikshvakus, Vishnukundins & early kingdomsc. 225–624 CEAbout four centuries separate the end of Satavahana rule on the Krishna, about 225 CE, from the Eastern Chalukya conquest of Vengi in the early 7th century. In between, regional dynasties shared the Telugu country, among them the Ikshvakus of Vijayapuri, the Pallavas, the Salankayanas and the Vishnukundins. Almost everything we know about them comes from short inscriptions and copper-plate land grants. Most give dates only as years of a king's reign, so the order of the dynasties is clear but their exact dates are still debated.16 dates · 21 terms · 280 quiz questions
4. 4Eastern Chalukyas & the Deccan powersc. 624–1163 CEFor five centuries after about 615, different powers ruled the Telugu coast and the uplands. On the coast the Eastern Chalukyas governed Vengi, the country between the mouths of the Krishna and the Godavari. Inland, the Chalukyas of Badami, the Rashtrakutas and the Chalukyas of Kalyani held power in turn, with local dynasties under them. Telugu verse appears in 9th-century inscriptions, and in the 11th century Nannaya wrote his Telugu Mahabharata at Rajahmundry.16 dates · 19 terms · 497 quiz questions
5. 5Kakatiyas1163–1323 CEBetween about 1150 and 1323 the Kakatiya kings brought much of the Telugu-speaking country under one dynasty. They ruled first from Anumakonda (Hanamkonda) and then from Orugallu (Warangal), and the period is usually dated from Rudradeva's inscription of January 1163. They ruled through lesser chiefs and military commanders, and built Telangana's great irrigation tanks and temples. The kingdom ended when the armies of the Delhi Sultanate took Warangal in the 1320s.17 dates · 21 terms · 378 quiz questions
6. 6Nayakas, Reddis & Bahmanisc. 1323–1518 CEThe Delhi army captured Warangal in 1323 and ended the Kakatiya kingdom. For nearly two centuries afterwards no single power ruled the whole Telugu country, but Telugu chiefs drove out the Delhi garrisons within twenty years. The Reddi kings then ruled the coast, local chiefs held the hill forts of Telangana, and the Gajapatis of Orissa pressed south along the coast. Inland, the Bahmani sultanate slowly took over, and its province of Telingana became the Qutb Shahi kingdom of Golconda.18 dates · 17 terms · 309 quiz questions
7. 7Vijayanagara & the Qutb Shahisc. 1336–1687 CEAfter the fall of Warangal, two kinds of state divided most of the Telugu country. Vijayanagara ruled Rayalaseema from its capital on the Tungabhadra and fought for the coast, while the Bahmani province of Telingana became the Qutb Shahi sultanate of Golconda in the early 16th century. After the allied sultans defeated Vijayanagara near Talikota in 1565, Golconda pushed south across the Krishna and founded Hyderabad. The period ends with the Mughal conquest of Golconda in 1687.18 dates · 23 terms · 421 quiz questions
8. 8Mughals, Asaf Jahis & the British1687–1948 CEThe Mughal conquest of Golconda in 1687 brought the whole Telugu country under one ruler, the emperor Aurangzeb. From 1724 his viceroy in the Deccan, Asaf Jah, ruled from Hyderabad as an independent prince, the first of the Nizams. Between 1766 and 1800 the Nizams handed the coastal Circars and Rayalaseema's Ceded Districts to the East India Company. Telangana stayed in Hyderabad State, so the Telugu lands were split between British India and the Nizam's state.19 dates · 24 terms · 415 quiz questions
9. 9Reform, freedom & people's movementsc. 1850–1956 CEFrom about 1850 to 1953 the Telugu regions lived under two different systems of rule. The coastal and Rayalaseema districts were in the British Madras Presidency, and Telangana was in the Nizam's Hyderabad State, so public life took two different forms. The era page follows the reformers, the freedom campaigns and the Rampa rebellion in the Madras districts, and the Telugu awakening and the Telangana armed struggle in Hyderabad State. It ends with Hyderabad's integration in 1948 and the Andhra State of 1953.20 dates · 20 terms · 195 quiz questions
10. 10Andhra State & Andhra Pradesh1953–2014 CEThe Andhra State began on 1 October 1953, with its government at Kurnool. On 1 November 1956 the Telangana districts of Hyderabad State were joined to it to form Andhra Pradesh, with Hyderabad city as the capital and safeguards for Telangana. Disputes over these safeguards led to the agitations of 1969 and 1972–73, the Six-Point Formula and Article 371D of the Constitution. The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act of 2014 divided the state again, into Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.20 dates · 10 terms · 66 quiz questions