Government & administration

Kakatiyas

1163–1323 CE

From about 1150 to 1323 the Kakatiya kings of Anumakonda and Orugallu (Warangal) brought much of the Telugu-speaking country under one dynasty. They built the great irrigation tanks and temples of Telangana, and fell to the armies of the Delhi Sultanate.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chandragupta Maurya

c. 322 BCE – 296 BCE

Founder of the Maurya empire (reigned c. 322–296 BCE). His empire probably did not reach the Telugu country, but Megasthenes, the Greek envoy at his court, described the Andhras and the Kalingas as powerful peoples with kings and armies of their own.

Bindusara

c. 296 BCE – 268 BCE

Second Maurya emperor (reigned c. 296–268 BCE), son of Chandragupta and father of Asoka. Later writers believed he carried Mauryan rule into the south. But no record says when the Telugu country came under the empire.

Asoka

c. 268 BCE – 226 BCE

Third Maurya emperor (3rd century BCE). His edicts at Erragudi and Rajula-Mandagiri in Kurnool district are among the oldest written records found in Andhra Pradesh. His Kalinga war reached the coast north of the Godavari, and his Rock Edict XIII names the Andhras.

Gautamiputra Satakarni

c. 113–138 CE

Satavahana king of the early 2nd century CE. He overthrew the Kshaharata satrap Nahapana and won back the western Deccan. His deeds are known mainly from the Nasik cave inscription set up by his mother, Gautami Balasri. Whether he also ruled the Krishna valley is disputed.

Vasishthiputra Pulumavi

c. 138–170 CE

Son and successor of Gautamiputra Satakarni, and the earliest Satavahana king named in an inscription from the lower Krishna valley. He lost much of the western Deccan to the Saka satrap Rudradaman, who was probably his father-in-law. A King Pulumavi is also named in a rock inscription at Myakadoni in Bellary district.

Sivaskandavarman (Pallava)

c. 250–275 CE

Earliest Pallava king known from his own charters. As crown prince he sent the Mayidavolu plates from Kanchipura to his officer at Dhannakada (Amaravati), granting a village in Andhrapatha, the Telugu country. As king he issued the Hirahadagalli plates and claimed the horse sacrifice. His date is disputed: from the early 3rd century to the middle of the 4th.

Nandivarman II (Salankayana)

c. 420–445 CE

Salankayana king of Vengi, eldest son of Chandavarman, and the best-documented king of the dynasty. The Kolleru plates of his 7th year, the Peddavegi plates of his 10th and probably one of the Kanteru grants are his. He called himself a parama-bhagavata (devout worshipper of the Lord) and gave land to a temple of Vishnu. Most scholars date him to the first half or middle of the 5th century.

Skandavarman II (Pallava)

c. 450–475 CE

Pallava king of the Nellore–Guntur country, known from the first Omgodu grant, issued from Tambrapa in the 33rd year of his reign. The grant gives his ancestors back to a Kumaravishnu, who performed the horse sacrifice. He was the father of the crown prince Vishnugopa and the grandfather of Simhavarman, whose grants come from the same region.

Pulakesin II

c. 609–642 CE

Chalukya king of Badami (609–642), the son of Kirtivarman I. His Aihole inscription of 634–35 says that he humbled the Kalingas and Kosalas, took the fortress of Pishtapura (Pithapuram), ravaged 'the water of Kunala' (taken to be the Kolleru lake) and drove the Pallava king behind the walls of Kanchi. He gave the conquered Vengi country to his younger brother Vishnuvardhana, the founder of the Eastern Chalukyas. His Kopparam plates of about 631 grant land in the Guntur country. He died when the Pallava Narasimhavarman I took Badami, probably in 642.

Kubja Vishnuvardhana

c. 615–633 CE

Younger brother of the Chalukya king Pulakesin II of Badami and founder of the Eastern Chalukya dynasty of Vengi. He served his brother as heir-apparent and governed the newly conquered east coast. He became an independent king there by 632 at the latest. His reign is usually dated 615–633, but scholars have put the start of his rule in Vengi anywhere from about 605 to after 631.

Jayasimha I

c. 633–663 CE

Second Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (about 633–663), the eldest son of Kubja Vishnuvardhana. Four copper-plate grants of his are known, issued from Udayapura and Asanapura and granting villages in the Krishna–Godavari country to Brahmins. Most later records give him a reign of 33 years, one gives 30, and the scholars who fixed the chronology disagreed over which to follow.

Vishnuvardhana II (Eastern Chalukya)

663–672 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (663–672), son of Indra-Bhattaraka and nephew of Jayasimha I, who may have adopted him. Two of his grants are the earliest Eastern Chalukya records whose dates can be worked out to the day. J. F. Fleet built the chronology of the whole dynasty on them. His son Mangi-yuvaraja followed him, and Mangi-yuvaraja's grant of 673 was found at Chendalur in the Ongole country.

Mangi-yuvaraja

c. 672–696 CE

Fifth king of the Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi (about 672–696), son of Vishnuvardhana II. His own grants call him Sarvalokasraya, 'asylum of all mankind', and his seal Vijayasiddhi. Only the later grants give the name Mangi-yuvaraja, and no source explains why the title yuvaraja stuck to it. Two of his grants survive; one of them, from Chendalur in the Ongole country, is dated 6 May 673. Three of his sons reigned after him: Jayasimha II, Kokkili and Vishnuvardhana III.

Jayasimha II (Eastern Chalukya)

c. 696–709 CE

Sixth king of the Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi (about 696–709), eldest son of Mangi-yuvaraja. The later grants give him a reign of thirteen years. His only known grant comes from Penukaparu in the Karma-rashtra district and calls him Sakalalokasraya Jayasimha-Vallabha. Its seal shows that he shared the surname Sarvasiddhi with Jayasimha I. After him the throne passed briefly to his half-brother Kokkili and then to his brother Vishnuvardhana III.

Vishnuvardhana III (Eastern Chalukya)

709–746 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (709–746), son of Mangi-yuvaraja. He took the throne by expelling his younger half-brother Kokkili and reigned for 37 years. His grants name two queens, and one of them, a renewal of an older gift to a Jain temple at Bezwada, is the earliest mention of Jains in the dynasty's records. A Pallava record claims that a general of Nandivarman II drove an enemy out of his kingdom.

Vishnuvardhana IV (Eastern Chalukya)

764–799 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (764–799), son of Vijayaditya I and father of Vijayaditya II. His reign saw the first recorded clashes with the Rashtrakutas of the western Deccan: a Rashtrakuta grant of 770–71 claims that Govinda II humbled the lord of Vengi, while a later record has Govinda II calling the king of Vengi to his aid. Historians read these records in different ways.

Amma I

c. 918–925 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (918–925), grandson of Chalukya-Bhima I. He came to the throne against a conspiracy of his own relatives allied with the Rashtrakutas. His surname Raja-Mahendra led J. F. Fleet to suggest that Rajahmundry (Rajamahendrapuram) was named after him. His death in 925 opened nine years of civil war among the branches of the dynasty. His son Beta-Vijayaditya V, deposed as a child, founded the line of the Chalukya princes of Pithapuram.

Chalukya-Bhima II

c. 934–945 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (about 934–945), called Rajabhima, a son of Vijayaditya IV. He ended the civil war that followed the death of his half-brother Amma I by driving out Yuddhamalla II. His grants list a long series of enemies he overcame, among them an army of the Rashtrakuta Govinda IV and Nolamba and Ganga princes of the Mysore country. He was the father of the kings Amma II and Danarnava.

Amma II

945–970 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (945–970), son of Chalukya-Bhima II and Lokamahadevi. He was crowned as a boy on 5 December 945, the first firmly dated event in the dynasty's history. About 956 the Rashtrakuta Krishna III, backing the claims of Yuddhamalla II's son Badapa, invaded Vengi and Amma went to Kalinga. Whether he fled or fought, and whether his half-brother Danarnava then ruled in his name or in his own, is disputed. His many grants include gifts to Jain temples and to a Kalamukha Saiva community at Bezwada.

Badapa

c. 956 CE

Eastern Chalukya prince of the junior line, son of Yuddhamalla II and elder brother of Tala II. In his Arumbaka plates he claimed to have driven Amma II out of Vengi with the help of the Rashtrakuta king Krishna III, and he took the imperial titles. Scholars disagree whether he ruled for a short time about 956 in the Velanandu district, or for the 27 years that the later grants call an interregnum (a gap in rule).

Tala II

c. 956 CE

Eastern Chalukya prince of the junior line, also called Vishnuvardhana, son of Yuddhamalla II and younger brother of Badapa. His only known grant, the Sripundi plates, made 'during the period of his rule', gives a small village in the Velanandu district to a minister whose father had died in his service. Its seal reads Tribhuvanasimha instead of the family's Tribhuvanankusa. This led both its editors to doubt that he ruled from the throne of Vengi.

Arikesari III (Chalukya of Vemulavada)

c. 966–973 CE

Last known Chalukya king of Vemulavada, a feudatory of the Rashtrakuta Krishna III. His Parbhani copper plates of 7 April 966 give a village in the Sabbi Thousand to the Jaina scholar Somadeva Suri for the Subhadhama Jinalaya, a temple built by his father at the capital, Vemulavada. An inscription at Repaka of 968 names him as builder of a Jaina temple. The family's rule ended when the Chalukyas of Kalyani took Telangana in the years up to 973.

Danarnava

970–973 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (970–973), elder half-brother of Amma II and son of Chalukya-Bhima II. While Amma II was away in Kalinga about 956, he held the kingdom with the support of the Rashtrakuta Krishna III. His Mangallu grant, made at the request of the Kakatiya chief Gundyana, is the earliest record to name the Kakatiya family. The later records say that after his three-year reign Vengi was without a ruler for twenty-seven years, until his sons Saktivarman and Vimaladitya were restored with Chola help.

Rajaraja I (Chola)

c. 985–1014 CE

Chola king of Tanjore (Thanjavur) from 985, the founder of the Chola empire, whose inscriptions claim the conquest of Vengai-nadu, the Eastern Chalukya country of Vengi. About 999 he helped the Eastern Chalukya prince Saktivarman I back to the throne of Vengi, and he married his daughter Kundavadevi to Saktivarman's brother Vimaladitya. This began the alliance that made the Eastern Chalukyas Chola vassals and, two generations later, Chola emperors. Inscriptions of his reign are found at Kalahasti, and a Vaidumba chief ruled under him in the Nellore country.

Beta I

c. 996–1051 CE

Early Kakatiya chief (c. 996–1051), also called Garuda Beta. As a boy he lost his father in war, and later he won back the family's position. His one known record, an inscription of 1051 at Sanigaram, is the oldest Kakatiya record after the Mangallu grant.

Saktivarman I

c. 999–1011 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (about 999–1011), the eldest son of Danarnava. He took the throne after the 27 years in which, as the later grants put it, Vengi had no ruler. The Chola king Rajaraja I is said to have restored order in Vengi at this time, and historians have read Saktivarman's accession as a Chola restoration. Gold coins with his title Chalukya-Chandra have been found in Arakan.

Vimaladitya

1011–1022 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (1011–1022), the younger brother of Saktivarman I. He was crowned on 10 May 1011. The Chola prince Rajendra defeated him, and he appears to have spent some years at the Chola court. There he married Kundavadevi, daughter of the Chola king Rajaraja I. Their son Rajaraja Narendra succeeded him.

Rajendra I (Chola)

c. 1012–1043 CE

Chola king from 1012, son of Rajaraja I and founder of Gangaikondacholapuram. As a prince he defeated the Eastern Chalukya Vimaladitya, his sister's husband, and set up a pillar of victory on Mahendragiri. As king he fought the Western Chalukya Jayasimha II and claimed Kollippakkai (Kolanupaka). His general marched to the Ganges while he himself waited on the Godavari, in a campaign that Krishna Sastri dated to 1028. His daughter Ammangadevi married the Eastern Chalukya Rajaraja Narendra and was the mother of Kulottunga I.

Rajaraja Narendra

1022–1063 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (crowned 1022, died about 1061–63), the son of a Chola princess and husband of another, who ruled from Rajahmundry. His reign was disturbed by Chola and Western Chalukya intervention and by a rising of his half-brother Vijayaditya VII. Telugu tradition remembers him as the patron of Nannaya, whose Mahabharata is the oldest surviving Telugu literary work.

Kusumayudha IV (Chalukya of Mudigonda)

c. 1040–1065 CE

Chief of the Mudigonda branch of the Chalukyas, known from a Sanskrit copper-plate grant, the Mogalcheruvula grant. Cecil Bendall found it in the Nizam's treasury at Hyderabad in 1899 and published it in 1903. It gives a village near Koravi in the Manchikonda district to a Brahmana, and sets out eight generations of the family from Kokiraja. Bendall dated the letters to the 11th century or later; N. Venkataramanayya placed Kusumayudha IV about 1040–1065.

Prola I

c. 1052–1076 CE

Kakatiya chief (c. 1052–1076), son of Beta I. He fought for the Western Chalukya king Trailokyamalla (Someshvara I), who gave him the district of Anumakonda as a permanent fief (land held from a king). He bore the title ari-gaja-kesari, and the family's boar emblem was later credited to him.

Kulottunga I

c. 1063–1118 CE

Eastern Chalukya prince of Vengi, son of Rajaraja Narendra and the Chola princess Ammangadevi. As Rajendra (Rajendra-Choda, Rajendra II) he was heir to Vengi in 1063. In 1070 he seized the Chola throne, and he reigned as Kulottunga Chola I until about 1118. He united the Eastern Chalukya and Chola crowns, and governed Vengi first through his uncle Vijayaditya VII and then through his own sons as viceroys.

Vijayaditya VII

c. 1063–1076 CE

Eastern Chalukya prince, a son of Vimaladitya and half-brother of Rajaraja Narendra. He governed Vengi from about 1063 until his death about 1076–77, at first in rivalry with his nephew Rajendra (Kulottunga I) and later as his viceroy. Grants found in the 20th century show that he had also seized Vengi from Rajaraja about 1030–35, and set up his own son Saktivarman II there in 1061.

Beta II

c. 1076–1108 CE

Kakatiya chief (c. 1076–1108) who took the name Tribhuvanamalla from his overlord, the Western Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI. He held Anumakonda as a Chalukya feudatory (subordinate ruler) and won the Sabbi-nadu district through his minister. He gave lands to the Kalamukha Shaiva teacher Rameshvara Pandita.

Gonka I (Velanati)

c. 1076–1117 CE

First prominent chief of the Velanati Chodas. He ruled the Andhra country, or part of it, as an officer of the Chola–Chalukya emperor Kulottunga I. A record of his at Chebrolu is dated 1076. M. Rama Rao dated his rule from 1076 to 1117. His son Choda (Rajendra Choda I) was adopted by Kulottunga and made governor of Vengi.

Vira-Choda

c. 1078–1093 CE

Son of Kulottunga I and viceroy of Vengi, installed on 23 August 1078. He was recalled in 1084 in favour of his eldest brother Chodaganga, and sent back about 1088–89. His Chellur and Pithapuram copper plates carry the full Eastern Chalukya family line, and the account of how Kulottunga handed Vengi to his uncle and his sons.

Tondaya II (Tondarasa) of Kandur

c. 1088–1091 CE

Kandur Choda chief, the Mahamandalesvara Tondarasa Chola-maharaja of Kandur. In December 1088 he was governing the Kollipake seven-thousand province for the Western Chalukya Vikramaditya VI. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry made him the eldest son of Choda Bhima II and the husband of Mailamba. Her Panugallu inscription of 1124 names their three sons Udayaditya, Bhima and Gokarna.

Durgaraja

c. 1108–1116 CE

Elder son of the Kakatiya chief Beta II. He is known from a single inscription of 1098 at Kazipet. He may have ruled briefly between about 1108 and 1116, before his younger brother Prola II took power.

Kumara Tailapa

c. 1110–1141 CE

Western Chalukya prince, a son of Vikramaditya VI by Queen Chandaladevi. From at least 1110 he governed the Kandur thousand district in southern Telangana from his capital Kolur. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry argued that he tried to make himself independent under his brother Somesvara III. He also argued that Tailapa was the 'Tailapadeva' whom the Kakatiya Prola II captured and released, an event earlier writers attached to King Taila III.

Prola II

c. 1116–1157 CE

Kakatiya chief (r. c. 1116–1157), son of Beta II and father of Rudradeva. As a Western Chalukya feudatory (subordinate ruler) he defeated the rival chiefs around Anumakonda. He was killed in battle with chiefs of the coastal Andhra country.

Rajendra Choda I (Velanati)

c. 1117–1132 CE

Velanati chief, son of Gonka I. The Chola–Chalukya emperor Kulottunga I adopted him as his son and made him governor of the Vengi country, between 1100 and 1112 according to E. Hultzsch. When the Chola viceroy left Vengi in 1118 he accepted the Western Chalukya Vikramaditya VI as overlord. M. Rama Rao dated his rule from 1117 to 1132.

Vikrama-Chola

c. 1118–1135 CE

Son of the Chola emperor Kulottunga I who governed Vengi for his father from about 1092–93 and left it in 1118 to be crowned Chola king. In his absence the Western Chalukya Vikramaditya VI took the Vengi province, holding Draksharama from 1120–21 to 1123–24; Vikrama-Chola won it back, and his records are found at Chebrolu and Nidubrolu in 1127 and 1135. An inscription of his ninth year records the building of the temple at Gudimallam, and his records are at Nandalur and Tripurantakam.

Gonka II (Velanati)

c. 1132–1163 CE

Velanati chief, called Kulottunga Choda Gonka, who ruled from about 1132 to 1163 according to M. Rama Rao. The Pithapuram inscription says that he set a golden pinnacle on the Bhimesvara temple at Draksharama, and ruled the kings between Kalahasti and the Mahendra mountain. His minister built the Suresvara temple at Karempudi in 1154.

Kulottunga II (Chola)

c. 1133–1146 CE

Chola king, son and successor of Vikrama-Chola, who reigned from the 1130s to the late 1140s. Coastal Andhra still recognised him: Telugu inscriptions at Bapatla are dated in his regnal years, the Velanandu chief Gonka II ruled at Draksharama as his vassal, and a copper-plate grant of his reign by Kolani-Katamanayaka, governor of Sarasipuri, survives as the Chellur plates (1143). The Godavari gazetteer thought the Cholas had little real power in Vengi by then.

Udaya Choda II of Kandur

c. 1136–1176 CE

Kandur Choda chief, son of Gokarna. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry identified him with the 'king Udaya' to whom the Kakatiya Prola II gave back a kingdom after capturing Govindaraja. His records run from 1136 to 1176. The Kakatiya Rudradeva married his daughter and left him his fief (land held from a king). An inscription of 1162 at Jedcherla shows his customs officers granting coins called Gokarna-Singa rukas to the god of Kodur.

Rajaraja II (Chola)

c. 1146–1163 CE

Chola king from 1146, son of Kulottunga II, in whose reign the Chola hold on the Telugu country became nominal. Telugu inscriptions at Bapatla, Appikatla and Draksharama are still dated in his regnal years, but they were set up by the Velanandu chiefs Gonka II and Kulottunga-Rajendra-Choda and other local rulers.

Rudradeva

c. 1158–1195 CE

Kakatiya ruler (c. 1158–1195) who defeated the rival chiefs of Telangana. He proclaimed his family's independence in the Thousand Pillar Temple inscription of 1163, and began the fortified capital at Orugallu (Warangal).

Rajendra Choda II (Velanati)

c. 1163–1181 CE

Velanati chief, son of Gonka II, who ruled from about 1163 to 1181. His copper plates of 1169, issued at Chandavolu, call him a general of the Chola king Rajaraja II. They say he killed Bhima of Kolanu and received the Andhra country between the eastern sea, Kalahasti, the Mahendra mountain and Srisailam. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry made him the master of the coast from Darsi to Simhachalam after 1172; his death in 1181 opened the way for the Kakatiyas.

Kulottunga III (Chola)

1178–1216 CE

Chola king (1178–1216), the last strong ruler of the dynasty. The Telugu Choda chiefs of Pottappi and Nellore, among them Nallasiddha, Tammusiddhi and Tikka, dated their records in his reign, and inscriptions of his years are found at Nellore, in the Gudur country and at Kalahasti, whose temple he renewed. The Cuddapah gazetteer credits him with restoring Chola power in the Paka-nadu in 1196, while the Kakatiyas took over the old Chola lands north of the Krishna.

Kota Keta II

c. 1182–1209 CE

Chief of Amaravati–Dharanikota, the Mahamandalesvara Kota Ketaraja, lord of the Six-thousand country south of the Krishna. His long inscription on a pillar of the Amaresvara temple is dated in Saka 1104, probably the day he came to the throne (about 1182–83). It records grants to Brahmans, and lamps and villages for the Buddha at Amaravati. His mother was a sister of a Gonka of Velanandu. His records run to about 1209.

Prithvisvara

c. 1186–1206 CE

Last ruler of the Velanati Chodas, son of Gonka III and Jayambika. In his reign his mother's grant of 1186 to the Kunti-Madhava temple at Pithapuram was engraved. The Kakatiya Ganapatideva drove him from the Krishna country, and Ganapatideva's general took the island of Divi about 1203. He held out north of the Godavari; his last record is of 1206, and he was killed in battle soon afterwards.

Mahadeva

c. 1195–1199 CE

Kakatiya king (r. c. 1195–1199), younger brother of Rudradeva and father of Ganapatideva. He was killed in a night battle while attacking the capital of the Yadava (Seuna) kings.

Recherla Rudra

c. 1195–1213 CE

General of the Kakatiya kings Rudradeva, Mahadeva and Ganapatideva, of the Recherla family. He held the kingdom together after Mahadeva's death at Devagiri, and he drove out the Mudigonda chief Nagati. In 1213 he founded the Rudreshvara (Ramappa) temple and its lake at Palampet.

Ganapatideva

c. 1199–1262 CE

Kakatiya king (r. 1199–c. 1262) whose sixty-year reign carried Kakatiya power from Telangana to the coast and the far south. He moved the capital to Orugallu (Warangal). His reign produced the Motupalli sea-trade edict and the Ramappa and Ganapesvaram temples.

Jaya (Jayapa)

c. 1209–1253 CE

General and minister of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva, of the Ayya family of Divi. Ganapati married his two sisters and made him commander of the elephant troops and governor of Velanadu. He built the Ganapesvara temple on Divi in 1231 and wrote the Nritta Ratnavali, a Sanskrit treatise on dance.

Gangaya Sahini

c. 1239–1257 CE

Kayastha chief and cavalry commander of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva. The king made him head of the seventy-two branches of administration (bahattara-niyogadhipati) and gave him a great fief from Panugallu to the Cuddapah country, which he ruled from Valluru. His nephews Jannigadeva, Tripurari and Ambadeva succeeded him, and the last rebelled against Rudramadevi.

Rajendra III (Chola)

c. 1246–1267 CE

The last Chola king (1246 to about 1267). His regnal years were still used by the Telugu Choda rulers of Nellore, among them Manumasiddhi, the patron of the poet Tikkana, and a Tamil record dated in his reign survives in the Gudur country of Nellore as late as 1263–64. An inscription of 1260–61 at Tripurantakam claims victories for him over two Pandya kings, which V. Rangacharya took for a real campaign and Robert Sewell did not. The Cuddapah gazetteer dates his death, and the end of the Cholas, to 1268.

Ganapamba

c. 1250–1257 CE

Kakatiya princess, daughter of Ganapatideva, married to the Kota chief Beta of Amaravati–Dharanikota. After Beta's death she ruled his lands as a Mahamandalesvara with the male titles of his family. She gilded the Amaresvara temple at Amaravati, and built temples named Betesvara and Ganapesvara after her husband and her father. Her Yenamadala pillar inscription is the main record of the Kota family.

Kota Beta

c. 1250–1257 CE

Chief of Amaravati–Dharanikota, grandson of Kota Keta II, who married Ganapamba, daughter of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva. He was alive in 1251, when he founded a temple at Yenamadala, and dead by 1257. His widow built temples in his memory and ruled his lands with the masculine titles of the family.

Rudramadevi

c. 1262–1289 CE

Daughter and successor of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva. She ruled from Orugallu (Warangal) under the masculine title Rudradeva Maharaja from about 1260. She faced rebels, the Yadavas, the Eastern Gangas and the revolt of the Kayastha Ambadeva, and died in 1289 according to the Chandupatla inscription (1294–95 in older accounts). Henry Yule and E. Hultzsch identified her with the just and beloved queen praised, without a name, by Marco Polo.

Ambadeva (Kayastha)

c. 1272–1294 CE

Kayastha chief (r. 1272–c. 1294) of Valluru in the Cuddapah country, and nephew of Gangaya Sahini. He threw off the authority of the Kakatiya queen Rudramadevi and built an independent state south-west of the Krishna with Yadava and Pandya support. He proclaimed his victories at Tripurantakam in 1290. Prataparudra's armies drove him from Tripurantakam in 1291.

Induluri Annaya

c. 1289–1323 CE

Brahman minister and general of the Induluri family, son-in-law of Queen Rudramadevi and a chief minister (mahapradhana) of Prataparudra. In 1291 he led the Kakatiya army that won back Tripurantakam from the Kayastha chief Ambadeva. He later governed the Vengi country.

Prataparudra

c. 1289–1323 CE

Last Kakatiya king (r. 1289–c. 1323; 1295–1323 in older accounts) and grandson of Rudramadevi. He crushed the Kayastha revolt, reorganised the nayankara military system, and paid tribute to Delhi after the sieges of 1310 and 1318. He was captured when Ulugh Khan took Warangal in the 1320s. Later warrior families remembered him as the king who raised them to rank.

Malik Maqbul (Khan-i Jahan)

c. 1323–1370 CE

Telugu noble of Warangal, called Kattu before his conversion, who entered the service of Muhammad bin Tughluq after the fall of the Kakatiyas. He governed the province of Telingana until Kanya Naik's revolt drove him out. He rose to be chief minister of Sultan Firuz Tughluq with the title Khan-i Jahan.

Muhammad bin Tughluq

1325–1351 CE

Sultan of Delhi (1325–1351). As Prince Ulugh Khan he besieged Warangal twice in the early 1320s, captured the Kakatiya king Prataparudra and renamed the city Sultanpur. As sultan he held Telingana as a province until a Telugu rising, after his visit of 1335, took Warangal from his governor. This page covers only his part in the history of the Telugu country.

Prolaya Nayaka

c. 1325–1336 CE

Musunuri chief (fl. c. 1325–1336). According to his Vilasa grant, he rose after Prataparudra's death and drove the Delhi garrisons out of the Telugu coast. He ruled from Rekapalli on the Godavari and gave back to the Brahmins the villages that the conquerors had seized.

Prolaya Vema Reddi

c. 1325–1353 CE

Founder of the Reddi kingdom of Addanki and Kondavidu (c. 1325–1353). He took over the country between Srisailam and the sea after the fall of the Kakatiyas. His grants of 1345 and 1346 say he restored the Brahman villages seized by the Muslim conquerors of Warangal. Later records remember him for the flights of steps at Srisailam and Ahobilam, and the poet Errapragada dedicated his Harivamsa to him.

Harihara I (Vijayanagara)

c. 1336–1355 CE

First ruler of Vijayanagara and eldest of the five sons of Sangama. With his brother Bukka he founded the kingdom on the Tungabhadra about 1336. His first dated inscription, of 1340, calls him only a mahamandalesvara, 'great lord'. It is disputed whether he and his brothers came from the service of the Kakatiyas of Warangal, of the Rai of Kampili or of the Hoysalas. His brother Kampa held Udayagiri and Nellore, the first Vijayanagara base in the Telugu country.

Kapaya Nayaka

c. 1336–1368 CE

Musunuri chief (fl. c. 1336–1368), cousin and successor of Prolaya Nayaka. He took Warangal from the Delhi governors and ruled as 'lord of the Andhra country'. He is identified with the Kanya Naik of Barani and the Krishna Naik of Ferishta. He helped the founders of the Bahmani kingdom, then lost Kaulas and Golconda to them. He was overthrown by the Recherla Velamas in about 1368.

Ala-ud-din Hasan Bahman Shah

1347–1358 CE

Officer of the Delhi sultanate who led the Deccan revolt against Muhammad bin Tughluq, with help from the ruler of Warangal. In 1347 he founded the Bahmani sultanate at Gulbarga. He took Kaulas from Warangal and made western Telangana a province of his kingdom.

Anavota Reddi

c. 1353–1364 CE

Second Reddi king of Addanki (c. 1353–1364), elder son of Prolaya Vema. His only known copper-plate grant, from Koduru (1358), and his renewal of the Kakatiya charter for sea merchants at Motupalli (1358) survive. A Velama chronicle claims a victory over him at Dharanikota in 1361. His son Kumaragiri and his son-in-law Kataya Vema later ruled at Kondavidu and Rajahmundry.

Bukka I (Vijayanagara)

c. 1355–1377 CE

Second ruler of Vijayanagara, brother and successor of Harihara I, who turned the frontier kingdom into an empire. He fought the Bahmani sultans Muhammad Shah I and Mujahid for the Raichur doab. His son Kumara Kampana destroyed the sultanate of Madura, and his inscriptions boast of driving the Andhras into the hills towards Udayagiri. His minister built the tank of Bukkarayasamudram in the Anantapur country in 1364. Sewell dated his reign 1343–1379 in 1900 and 1355–1377 in 1932.

Muhammad Shah I

1358–1375 CE

Second Bahmani sultan (1358–1375), son of the founder. He organised the court, the army and the four provinces, struck the dynasty's own gold coin, and fought the first great wars with Warangal and Vijayanagara. In Ferishta's account the ruler of Warangal ceded Golconda to him and gave up a jewelled throne, the Takht-i-Feroza or turquoise throne. The Burhan-i Ma'asir tells of the Telingana war in a single sentence.

Anapota Nayaka (Recherla)

c. 1361–1384 CE

Recherla Velama chief (r. c. 1361–1384), son of Singama Nayaka. He fortified Rachakonda in 1365 and overthrew the Musunuri chief Kapaya Nayaka about 1368. By July 1369 he ruled Warangal, Bhongir and Rachakonda. With his brother Mada of Devarakonda he made the Recherla family the leading power of Telangana.

Anavema Reddi

c. 1364–1386 CE

Third Reddi king (c. 1364–1386), younger son of Prolaya Vema, who ruled from Kondavidu and carried the kingdom's grants into the Godavari delta. He is known from five copper-plate grants (Pachchanitandiparru 1374, Nadupuru, Pedapalakaluru 1378, Vanapalli 1380 and others) and from records at Srisailam and Draksharama. He was surnamed Vasantaraya for his spring festival. The poet Srinatha's connection with the Reddis probably began under him.

Kataya Vema

c. 1386–1415 CE

Minister and brother-in-law of Kumaragiri of Kondavidu. He received 'the eastern country' with Rajahmundry as its capital in the 1380s, and ruled the Godavari delta and the coast to Simhachalam until about 1414–16. A grandson of Prolaya Vema through his mother, he was also a Sanskrit scholar. He wrote the Kumaragirirajiyam, a commentary on Kalidasa's plays.

Kumaragiri Reddi

c. 1386–1402 CE

Reddi king of Kondavidu (c. 1386–1402), son of Anavota. He is remembered for his spring festival and his court's foreign trade, and as the patron after whom Kataya Vema named his commentary on Kalidasa. He gave the Godavari country around Rajahmundry to his minister and brother-in-law Kataya Vema. At the end of his reign he lost Kondavidu to his kinsman Peda Komati Vema.

Firuz Shah

1397–1422 CE

Eighth Bahmani sultan (1397–1422), a grandson of the founder. A learned and tolerant king in his early years, he fought Vijayanagara for most of his reign. The Burhan-i Ma'asir credits him with conquering Telingana as far as Rajahmundry. In 1417 he took tribute from the raja of Telingana, but then lost a two-year siege of Pangal to Vijayanagara and the raja of Telingana together. He gave up the throne to his brother Ahmad in 1422 and died days later.

Peda Komati Vema

c. 1402–1420 CE

Fifth Reddi king of Kondavidu (c. 1402–1420), a grandson of Prolaya Vema's elder brother Macha, known as a scholar-king. The Sringaradipika commentary on the Amarusataka and other works are ascribed to him, and the poet Srinatha served him as vidyadhikarin and composed his grants. His reign was spent in wars with the Rajahmundry Reddis, Vijayanagara and the Recherla Velamas.

Allada Reddi

c. 1416–1420 CE

Reddi noble of the Duvvuri branch of the Panta family who took control of the Rajahmundry kingdom after Kataya Vema's death (c. 1416–1420). It seems he ruled first as regent for Kataya Vema's son and daughter. His sons' grants credit him with victories over the Kondavidu king Peda Komati Vema and over 'Alpa Khan', and with friendship with the Gajapati and the king of Vijayanagara. His sons Allaya Vema and Virabhadra ruled Rajahmundry after him.

Ahmad Shah I

1422–1435 CE

Ninth Bahmani sultan (1422–1435), called Wali, 'the Saint'. He took the throne from his brother Firuz and defeated Vijayanagara. In 1424 or 1425 he took Warangal, killing its raja, and the Velama rayas of Devarakonda and Rachakonda then paid him tribute. He moved the capital from Gulbarga to Bidar. He had to march into Telangana again to put down the chiefs who rose while he fought Gujarat and Malwa.

Deva Raya II (Vijayanagara)

1422–1446 CE

King of Vijayanagara from 1422 or 1423 to 1446, the greatest ruler of the first dynasty. He enlisted Muslim archers in his army, survived an attempt on his life in 1443 and received the Persian envoy Abdur Razzaq. His inscriptions reach the Godavari delta and the Guntur and Nellore country. The Telugu poet Vallabharaya governed Vinukonda for him, and Srinatha was bathed in gold in his Pearl Hall. After his death the Bahmani sultan and the Gajapati of Orissa besieged his capital together.

Kapilendra (Kapilesvara)

c. 1434–1470 CE

Founder of the Suryavamsi Gajapati dynasty of Orissa, who took the throne of the last Eastern Ganga king in 1434–35 and reigned until about 1470. He conquered the Reddi kingdoms of Rajahmundry and Kondavidu, and governed them through his nephew Raghudeva and his kinsman Ganadeva. He relieved Devarakonda from the Bahmanis in 1459, and his son Hamvira and Raghudeva took Warangal in 1460. His records credit him with conquests down the coast to the Kaveri.

Humayun Shah

1458–1461 CE

Eleventh Bahmani sultan (1458–1461), remembered as Zalim, 'the Cruel'. In Telangana he put down the revolt of his cousin Sikandar Khan, who claimed the province. He sent an army against the Velama fort of Devarakonda, which was routed by its defenders and an Orissan relief force in 1459. He camped at Warangal, left Mahmud Gawan to hold Telangana, and returned to Bidar to take a savage revenge on a rising there.

Muhammad Shah III

1463–1482 CE

Bahmani sultan (1463–1482) who came to the throne as a boy. He brought Rajahmundry, Kondapalli and the Krishna–Godavari coast under Bahmani rule, and spent three years settling Telangana. In 1481 he had his great minister Mahmud Gawan executed because of a forged letter, a deed the sources blame for the break-up of the kingdom.

Mahmud Shah Bahmani

1482–1518 CE

Fourteenth Bahmani sultan (1482–1518). He came to the throne at twelve and spent his reign as the puppet of his ministers, while the governors became kings. Telangana stayed loyal longest. He campaigned at Warangal in 1486 and gave the province to Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk in the 1490s. Bahmani mosques of his reign stand at Rachakonda (1484) and Golconda (1518), the latter still naming him as sovereign.

Saluva Narasimha

c. 1485–1492 CE

Chief of the Saluva family of Chandragiri. He drove the Gajapatis of Orissa back up the coast towards Rajahmundry and faced the Bahmani sultan there in the 1470s. In 1485–86 he took the throne of Vijayanagara from the last Sangama king and founded the second, Saluva, dynasty. He died in 1492–93 and left his young sons in the charge of his general Narasa Nayaka. Whether he recovered Udayagiri from Orissa is disputed.

Yusuf Adil Khan (Yusuf Adil Shah)

c. 1489–1510 CE

Founder of the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur (r. about 1489–1510). He was a foreign-born officer of the Bahmani kings who governed the province of Bijapur with the title Adil Khan. He declared his independence in AH 895 (1489–90). In 1493 he defeated the Vijayanagara regent Timmaraja and took Mudgal and Raichur. This began a century of war over the Raichur doab.

Shitab Khan (Sitapati) of Warangal

c. 1504–1516 CE

A Telugu chief of humble birth who held Warangal, Khammam and Bellamkonda in the early sixteenth century. Hirananda Sastri identified him with an officer who had fled the Bahmani Sultan Humayun Shah about 1461, and with the Sitapati of the Golconda chronicle. His pillar inscription in Warangal fort records that he took the fort from the Muslims on 21 January 1504. He put back the images of Krishna and of the Kakatiya family goddess. He supported Telugu poets and called himself king of the Bhogi family. Sultan Quli Qutb Shah of Golconda defeated him. He took shelter with the Gajapati prince at Kondapalli and fought on the losing side at Palanchinur. The Kistna manual thought he was a vassal of Orissa.

Krishnadeva Raya

1509–1529 CE

King of Vijayanagara from 1509 to 1529, of the Tuluva dynasty, and the most famous ruler of the empire. In 1512–16 he took Udayagiri, Kondavidu and Kondapalli from the Gajapati Prataparudra. He marched to Simhachalam and married the Gajapati's daughter. In 1520 he defeated the Adil Shah at Raichur. He wrote the Telugu poem Amuktamalyada, in which the god says Telugu is the best of the languages of the land. His court, with Allasani Peddana and Nandi Timmana, began the age of the Telugu prabandha (long narrative poem).

Achyuta Raya

1529–1542 CE

King of Vijayanagara from 1529 or 1530 to 1542, half-brother and successor of Krishnadeva Raya. He was crowned at Tirupati after years of confinement at Chandragiri. He lost Raichur and Mudkal to Bijapur, while Sultan Quli of Golconda attacked Kondavidu. His court poem credits him with a southern campaign and a victory at Raichur. Nuniz, who lived at his capital, called him a tyrant ruled by his two brothers-in-law, the Salakam Tirumalas, whose regency after his death led to civil war.

Ibrahim Qutb Shah

1530–1580 CE

Fourth Qutb Shahi sultan of Golconda (1550–1580), a younger son of Sultan Quli. He spent seven years as an exile at Vijayanagara under Rama Raya. He came back to take the throne with the help of the Telugu foot soldiers who held the forts. He joined the alliance that destroyed Vijayanagara at Talikota in 1565, and he conquered Rajahmundry, the northern coast and Kondavidu. Telugu poets dedicated works to him and to his officers, and Telugu records call him Ibharama. A Sanskrit copper-plate grant from Nellore calls him Malikibharama.

Ibrahim Adil Shah I

c. 1535–1558 CE

Fourth Adil Shahi sultan of Bijapur (r. 1535–1558), a younger son of Ismail Adil Shah. Invited by Bhoj Tirmal of Vijayanagara, he entered the Vijayanagara capital in 1535. His general Asad Khan then besieged Adoni, the first Bijapur attack on the fortress, which Ferishta says ended in a negotiated peace. In 1551–52 he lost Raichur and Mudgal to Aliya Rama Raya.

Aliya Rama Raya

1542–1565 CE

Chief of the Aravidu family and son-in-law (aliya) of Krishnadeva Raya. After Achyuta Raya's death, he and his brothers Tirumala and Venkatadri overthrew the regent Salakam Timma. He placed Sadasiva on the throne in 1542 and ruled the empire in his name until 1565. His family's lands lay around Kurnool, Adoni and Gooty, and his governors held Kondavidu. He played the Deccan sultans against each other until they joined against him. He was captured and beheaded in the battle of January 1565.

Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah

1566–1612 CE

Fifth Qutb Shahi sultan of Golconda (1580–1612), third son of Ibrahim Qutb Shah. He founded the city of Bhagnagar, later Hyderabad, on the Musi river around 1589–91, and built the Charminar, the Jami Masjid and the Dar-ush-Shifa hospital there. Ferishta says he named the city after a singer, Bhagmati. The sources differ on who she was and on how the city got its later name. He wrote poetry in Persian and the old Urdu of the Deccan.

Tirumala (Aravidu)

c. 1569–1572 CE

Brother of Aliya Rama Raya and the first king of the fourth, Aravidu, dynasty of Vijayanagara. He commanded a wing of the army in the battle of 1565 and lost an eye there. He fled with King Sadasiva and the treasury to Penukonda, which became the capital. He took the throne about 1569–70 and divided the empire into three viceroyalties, the Telugu one under his son Sriranga at Udayagiri and Penukonda. The Telugu poem Vasucharitramu was dedicated to him. Heras dates his death to 1572, Sewell to 1578.

Ibrahim Adil Shah II

1580–1627 CE

Sixth Adil Shahi sultan of Bijapur (r. 1580–1627), nephew and successor of Ali Adil Shah I, called Jagat Guru. He was the patron of the historian Ferishta and the builder of the Ibrahim Rauza. In his reign Bijapur held Adoni against a siege of 1595–96. Early in the seventeenth century it took Kurnool from the last Hindu chief of the town. Heras places Ferishta's account of a failed Bijapur siege of Penukonda in these years.

Venkatapati II (Vijayanagara)

1586–1614 CE

King of Vijayanagara from 1586 to 1614, the youngest son of Tirumala and the last strong ruler of the empire. He was chosen king over his young nephews. He ruled first from Penukonda, then from Chandragiri, and from 1606 from Vellore. He fought Golconda for the Telugu country, and the Telugu Ramarajiyamu says peace was made with the Krishna as the boundary. Jesuit missionaries lived at his court, and Tenali Ramakrishna and Tarigoppula Mallana are counted among his poets. His death at Chandragiri in 1614 was followed by a war of succession.

Sultan Muhammad Qutb Shah

1593–1626 CE

Sixth Qutb Shahi sultan of Golconda (1611/12–1626), nephew and son-in-law of Muhammad Quli. He was a scholarly and peaceful king. He founded the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, began a new town called Sultannagar, sheltered the rebel Mughal prince Khurram (Shah Jahan) and had the first history of his dynasty written. His queen, Hayat Bakhsh Begum, was the mother of Abdullah Qutb Shah.

Abdullah Qutb Shah

1614–1672 CE

Seventh Qutb Shahi sultan of Golconda (1626–1672). He was crowned as a boy and left the government to his mother Hayat Bakhsh Begum and his ministers. In 1636 he accepted the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as his overlord. His minister Mir Jumla conquered the Karnatak and its diamond mines. In 1656 Mir Jumla's quarrel with him brought Aurangzeb to besiege Golconda. An inscription in Persian and Telugu records the siege. He died without a son in 1672.

Muhammad Adil Shah

1627–1656 CE

Seventh Adil Shahi sultan of Bijapur (r. 1627–1656), called Mahmud in some histories, and the builder of the Gol Gumbaz. He made peace with Shah Jahan in 1636 and then sent his armies into the Karnatak, with Shahji Bhonsle among the commanders. Bijapur took Jinji and Vellore, Penukonda (1652, by a Mackenzie manuscript) and the uplands of the Bellary and Anantapur country. It divided the Karnatak with Golconda's minister Mir Jumla.

Shivaji

c. 1627–1680 CE

Founder of the Maratha kingdom (died 1680), crowned at Raigarh in 1674. In the Telugu country he is remembered for his Karnatak expedition of 1677. He made an alliance with Abul Hasan Qutb Shah of Golconda, and the king and his ministers Madanna and Akkanna received him at Hyderabad with great ceremony. He made a pilgrimage to Srisailam, crossed the Krishna near Kurnool and sent his army south through the Cuddapah country to Jinji. On the way home he took the fort of Bellary. In 1680 Bijapur gave him its rights over the Bellary and Anantapur country.

Ali Adil Shah II

1656–1672 CE

Eighth Adil Shahi sultan of Bijapur (r. 1656–1672). Aurangzeb invaded the kingdom when he came to the throne, claiming that he was not Muhammad Adil Shah's son. His reign saw the rise of Shivaji and the rebellion of Siddi Jauhar, the Abyssinian governor of Kurnool. Royal campaigns brought the Kurnool province and the Raichur country back under control, before the Mughal treaties of 1666–68 cut down the kingdom.

Aurangzeb (Alamgir)

1658–1707 CE

Sixth Mughal emperor (1658–1707). As his father's viceroy of the Deccan, he made Golconda pay its unpaid tribute. With Mir Jumla's help he besieged Abdullah Qutb Shah in Golconda in 1656, and won the handover of Ramgir and the Karnatak. As emperor he took Golconda in 1687 after an eight months' siege. He made the kingdom the Mughal province (subah) of Haidarabad and stayed near the fort until January 1688 to settle it. This page covers only his part in the history of the Telugu country.

Siddi Masud Khan

c. 1662–1688 CE

Abyssinian noble of Bijapur. By the Bellary gazetteer's count he was governor and jagirdar (land-grant holder) of Adoni from 1662 to 1687. From 1678 he was regent of the kingdom for the boy-king Sikandar Adil Shah. He built the Jama Masjid of Adoni, which its inscriptions date to AH 1079 (1666–67). Driven from the capital, he held Adoni as the last Bijapur stronghold in the Telugu country. He surrendered it to the Mughals, in 1688 according to Sarkar.

Abul Hasan Tana Shah

c. 1672–1699 CE

Abul Hasan, called Tana Shah, was the last Qutb Shahi sultan of Golconda (1672–1687). He was a kinsman and son-in-law of Abdullah Qutb Shah. He left the government to the Brahmin brothers Madanna and Akkanna, who allied the kingdom with the Marathas. Aurangzeb made this a charge against him and took Hyderabad in 1685. In 1687 Aurangzeb besieged Golconda for eight months, until a gate was opened by treachery. Abul Hasan died a state prisoner at Daulatabad.

Sikandar Adil Shah

1672–1686 CE

Ninth and last Adil Shahi sultan of Bijapur (r. 1672–1686). He came to the throne as a small boy and reigned under regents: Khawas Khan, Bahlol Khan, and the Abyssinian Siddi Masud, jagirdar (land-grant holder) of Adoni. In his reign Shivaji marched through the Kurnool country to take Bijapur's Karnatak forts (1677), and the Raichur doab was ceded to the Marathas. Aurangzeb took Bijapur on 12 September 1686. Sikandar died a prisoner in 1700.

Joseph François Dupleix

1697–1764 CE

Governor of Pondicherry and of the French settlements in India from 1742 to 1754. By backing Muzaffar Jang and then Salabat Jang in the war for the Nizam's throne, he won for the French Company the grant of Masulipatam (1750) and, through his officer Bussy, the Northern Circars (1753). Superseded by Godeheu in 1754, he died in poverty in France.

Kam Bakhsh

1707–1709 CE

Youngest son of Aurangzeb (1667–1709). When his father died in 1707 he was on his way to govern Bijapur. He proclaimed himself emperor, struck coins and made Hyderabad his seat, where he had the subahdar Rustam Dil Khan trampled to death. His brother Bahadur Shah marched south and defeated him near Hyderabad on 13 January 1709, and he died of his wounds that night.

Abdul Nabi Khan (Nawab of Cuddapah)

c. 1714 CE

Pathan (Miana) Nawab of Cuddapah in the early eighteenth century. Gribble's chronology calls him 'the greatest of the Cuddapah Nabobs'. Kirmani says that the emperor Bahadur Shah gave him Cuddapah as a land grant, and the Cuddapah gazetteer dates his governorship from 1714. He took Sidhout from its fort commander in 1714 and held Gandikota, Cumbum and Gurramkonda. He made the poligar of Punganur pay him tribute, raided the Baramahal and joined the Nawab of Arcot in taking money from Mysore. Local tradition says he founded the town of Cuddapah. He had stopped ruling by 1732, when an inscription names his son as Nawab.

Charles de Bussy

1718 CE

French general, born in 1718, who commanded the French troops at the court of the Nizams Muzaffar Jang and Salabat Jang from 1751 to 1758. He raised Salabat Jang to the throne and obtained from him the four Northern Circars for the French Company in 1753. He governed them through the Raja of Vizianagaram and the zamindars. In 1757 he destroyed the fort of Bobbili and took the English factories on the coast. Lally recalled him to the Carnatic in 1758, and he left the Circars to be lost to Colonel Forde.

Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah I (Mir Qamar-ud-din)

1724–1748 CE

Founder of the Asaf Jahi dynasty and first Nizam of Hyderabad. A Mughal noble of Turani descent, born at Delhi in 1671, he was made viceroy of the Deccan in 1713 with the title Nizam-ul-Mulk. He defeated and killed the governor Mubariz Khan at Shakar Kheda in Berar in 1724, received the title Asaf Jah, and ruled the Deccan as an independent sovereign until his death at Burhanpur in 1748. He is buried at Khuldabad near Aurangabad.

Nasir Jang (Mir Ahmad Khan)

1748–1750 CE

Second son of Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah I. He seized the treasury and the throne of the Deccan when his father died in 1748. The English backed him against his nephew Muzaffar Jang and the French. He took Muzaffar Jang prisoner in 1750. In December 1750 the Nawab of Cuddapah shot him dead on his elephant, in a plot encouraged by Dupleix.

Muhammad Ali Khan Walajah

1749–1795 CE

Nawab of the Carnatic (Arcot) from 1749 to 1795, the son of Anwar-ud-din Khan. His father was killed at Ambur in 1749. He held out at Trichinopoly and, with English help, won the Nawabship from Chanda Sahib and the French. The treaty of Paris of 1763 recognised him, and the Mughal emperor gave him the title Walajah. His Telugu districts were Nellore, held under his brother Najib-ullah, who rebelled in 1757, Ongole and the Palnad. He owed large debts to the Company and to private lenders. He handed the revenues of the Carnatic to the Company in 1781, saw it take over their management in 1790–92, and agreed by the treaty of 1792 to pay nine lakhs of pagodas a year for its troops. He died in October 1795.

Muzaffar Jang (Hidayat Muhi-ud-din Khan)

1750–1751 CE

Grandson of Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah I through a favourite daughter, and governor of Bijapur. He claimed the Deccan on his grandfather's death in 1748, with the help of Chanda Sahib and the French. His uncle Nasir Jang imprisoned him in 1750. He was proclaimed Subahdar when Nasir Jang was murdered in December 1750, and granted the French Masulipatam and other land. The Nawab of Kurnool killed him on the march back to the Deccan early in 1751.

Salabat Jang

1751–1761 CE

Third son of Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah I, raised to the throne of the Deccan by the French commander Bussy in 1751. Under Bussy's protection he defeated the Marathas and his elder brother Ghazi-ud-din, and in 1753 assigned the Northern Circars to the French. After Colonel Forde drove the French from the coast, he ceded Masulipatam to the English (1759). His brother Nizam Ali took power as his minister, deposed him in 1761 or 1762 and had him killed in prison about 1763.

Ranmast Khan (Munawwar Khan, Nawab of Kurnool)

1752–1792 CE

Pathan Nawab of Kurnool from 1752 to 1792, the brother of Himmat Bahadur Khan, called Ranmast Khan and Munawwar Khan. His brother died, and the French stormed Kurnool in 1751. He came back from Arcot and raised troops with money from the Nawab of Cuddapah and the help of the deshmukh of Kurnool. In 1752 he won back his capital from the Nizam's officer and the raja of Gadwal. He paid tribute to the Nizam and, from 1769 or about 1775, to Haidar Ali. Local tradition says he paid Haidar after a holy man's attempt to frighten Haidar failed. Tipu Sultan pressed him for unpaid tribute. His son Alif Khan led his horsemen with the Nizam's army against Tipu in 1790–92, and he died in 1792.

Abdul Halim Khan (Nawab of Cuddapah)

1761–1779 CE

The last Pathan Nawab of Cuddapah. He ruled Cuddapah and Sidhout from 1761 until Haidar Ali conquered him in 1779. A Telugu account translated by C. P. Brown says he was freed from prison in the fort of Sidhout in 1761 and became ruler when the Nawab Mohsin Khan left. Gribble says he followed his uncle, whom he calls Mahasim Khan. He paid Haidar money in 1769 and sent him horsemen in 1776, but he sided with the Nizam's general against him. In 1779 Haidar and Mir Sahib defeated his Pathan horsemen near Duvvur, took Cuddapah and forced him to surrender at Sidhout. He died a prisoner at Seringapatam, and his sister became Haidar's wife as Bakhshi Begum.

Haidar Ali

1761–1782 CE

A soldier who made himself master of Mysore in 1761 and ruled it until he died in December 1782. In the Telugu country he took Penukonda and Madakasira from the Maratha Morari Rao in 1762. He won back Gurramkonda through his brother-in-law Mir Sahib in 1768, took Bellary in 1775 and took Gooty from Morari Rao in 1776. In 1779 he conquered the Nawab of Cuddapah, and the Nawab of Kurnool and the poligars of the Bellary and Anantapur country paid him tribute. His invasion of the Carnatic in 1780 began the Second Mysore War.

Madhavrao I

1761–1772 CE

Peshwa (chief minister) of the Marathas from 1761 to his death in November 1772, and the son of Balaji Baji Rao. As a young man he fought beside his uncle Raghunath Rao against Nizam Ali at Rakshasbhuvan on the Godavari in 1763. In his wars with Haidar Ali of Mysore he took Sira in 1767, and the Mysore commander Mir Sahib then received Gurramkonda from the Marathas. His uncle Trimbak Rao took Gurramkonda by siege in 1771. The treaty of June 1772 left it with the Marathas until Tipu took it back in 1773–74.

Nizam Ali Khan (Asaf Jah II)

1761–1803 CE

Fourth son of Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah I. He pushed aside his brother Salabat Jang in 1761–62 and ruled the Deccan until his death at Hyderabad in 1803. In his reign the Northern Circars passed to the East India Company (1766, Guntur in 1788). The Nizam joined the British against Tipu Sultan, was defeated by the Marathas at Kharda (1795) and accepted a permanent subsidiary force (1798). To pay for it he gave up his Mysore gains, the later Ceded Districts of Rayalaseema (1800). He is the first Nizam buried at the Mecca Masjid.

Sir Thomas Munro

1761–1827 CE

Sir Thomas Munro (1761–1827) was a Scottish soldier and administrator. As the first Principal Collector of the Ceded Districts of Rayalaseema, from 1800 to 1807, he put down the poligars (local military chiefs) and made the ryotwari settlement with each cultivator. He became Governor of Madras in 1820. He died in office at Pattikonda, then in the Bellary district, on 6 July 1827. In the Ceded Districts he was remembered with ballads and as a 'father'.

Qamar-ud-din Khan

1781–1799 CE

Son of Mir Sahib and cousin of Tipu Sultan. He followed his father in command of the Gurramkonda and Cuddapah country in 1781–82. In 1783 he defeated a claimant to the Nawabship of Cuddapah and the English force that had taken Cumbum. Tipu arrested him in 1785 and took away his jagirs, but he led Mysore troops again in 1791. After the fall of Seringapatam in 1799 he surrendered to the British. The partition treaty bound the Nizam to give him a personal jagir in the Gurramkonda districts.

Tipu Sultan

1782–1799 CE

Son of Haidar Ali and ruler of Mysore from December 1782 until he was killed at the fall of Seringapatam on 4 May 1799. As a young commander he took Gurramkonda back from the Marathas in 1773–74. As Sultan he held Gooty, Gurramkonda, Cuddapah, Bellary and the Anantapur country. He gave Gooty and Gurramkonda the new names Faiz Hisar and Zafarabad and struck copper coins at both. He besieged Adoni in 1786 and seized the poligars of Rayadurg and Harpanahalli. By the treaty of 1792 he gave up Cuddapah, Gurramkonda, Bellary and Tadpatri to the Nizam. The rest of his Telugu districts went to the Nizam after his death and were ceded to the East India Company in 1800.

Asad Ali Khan (Muzaffar-ul-Mulk) of Banganapalle

c. 1783–1815 CE

Co-ruler of the Banganapalle jagir (land grant) in the late eighteenth century, titled Muzaffar-ul-Mulk. Through his mother he was a grandson of the line of the Mughal killedar (fort commander) Muhammad Beg Khan. He held Chenchelimala and managed Banganapalle for his young nephews. When Tipu Sultan seized the jagir in 1783, he took refuge with a poligar. In 1790, with troops from the Nizam, he and his nephew Ghulam Ali Khan beat Tipu's officer at Tammadapalle and recovered the country. He served the Nizam against Tipu in 1791 and was briefly subahdar of Cuddapah. In 1800 the Nizam stipulated with the Company that the jagir should be continued to him and his nephew.

Ghulam Ali Khan (Mansur-ud-daula) of Banganapalle

c. 1790–1822 CE

Jagirdar (holder of the land grant) of Banganapalle from 1790 to the early 1820s, titled Mansur-ud-daula. The family later regarded him as the founder of the State. A son of Husain Ali Khan, he was confirmed in the jagir by Tipu Sultan in 1783 and at once expelled. With his uncle Asad Ali Khan and troops from the Nizam he won it back at Tammadapalle in 1790. He lived mostly at Hyderabad and fought in the Nizam's army, and he lost the use of his right hand against the Marathas. Under the cession of 1800 the jagir passed under the Company's control free of tribute. Before his death he divided villages among his relatives as sub-jagirs and placed his son Husain Ali Khan on the musnad (throne).

Alif Khan II (Nawab of Kurnool)

1792–1815 CE

Pathan Nawab of Kurnool from 1792 to 1815. He was the third son of Ranmast (Munawwar) Khan, and the Kurnool manual calls him Aluf Khan. He put down his elder brother Hasan Ali Khan, led 1,400 horse for the Nizam at Kharda in 1795 and refused Tipu Sultan's claim to tribute. In 1800 the Nizam handed the Kurnool tribute to the East India Company. Alif Khan denied that it was owed but agreed to pay of his own will. In 1804 the payment was fixed at a lakh and a quarter of Gadwal rupees for eight years and a lakh after that, with 500 horse and 500 foot soldiers. He tried to make his favourite son, Ghulam Rasul, his heir and imprisoned the eldest, whom a Company force freed in 1813. His rule was remembered as harsh.

Sikandar Jah (Asaf Jah III)

1803–1829 CE

Eldest son of Nizam Ali Khan, Nizam of Hyderabad from 1803 to 1829. His reign began with the Maratha war of 1803 and ended in debt. He left the government to his ministers Mir Alam and Munir-ul-Mulk and their deputy Chandu Lal. Under them European officers supervised the districts from about 1820, and the Nizam's tribute from the Northern Circars was bought out (1823). The cantonment of Secunderabad is named after him.

Sir Arthur Cotton

1803–1899 CE

Engineer officer of the Madras army (1803–1899). He planned and built the anicut (dam) across the Godavari at Dowlaishweram (1847–1852), which turned the Godavari delta into irrigated rice land. He backed the plan for the Krishna anicut at Bezwada (built 1852–1855). At Vizagapatam he built sea groins and St John's church in 1844. He planned the upper Godavari navigation, of which the Dummagudem anicut survives.

Mir Alam (Mir Abul Qasim)

1804–1808 CE

Diplomat, general and minister of the Nizams Nizam Ali Khan and Sikandar Jah. He came from a Sayyid family of Shushtar in Persia. He represented the Nizam at Calcutta in 1786–89 and with Lord Cornwallis in 1791, commanded the Nizam's army against Tipu Sultan in 1799, and was minister from 1804 until his death in 1808. He built the Mir Alam tank south-west of Hyderabad (1806) from his share of the Seringapatam prize money. He was the great-grandfather of Salar Jung I.

Chandu Lal

1806–1843 CE

Peshkar (deputy minister) and in practice chief minister of Hyderabad from 1808 to 1843, under Sikandar Jah and Nasir-ud-daula. Born in 1766 into a family that came to the Deccan with Asaf Jah, he rose from the customs department, was made Peshkar in 1806 and governed for the powerless minister Munir-ul-Mulk, holding to the British alliance. His government raised the reformed troops that became the Hyderabad Contingent, but fell deep into debt. He resigned on 6 September 1843 and died in April 1845. He was famous for his generosity.

Ghulam Rasul Khan (Nawab of Kurnool)

1823–1839 CE

The last Nawab of Kurnool, who ruled from 1823 to 1839. He was a younger son of Alif Khan II. He followed his brother Munawwar Khan after another brother, Muzaffar Khan, was imprisoned for murder. The Kurnool manual describes his rule as greedy and his habits as wasteful. At a time of reports of a Wahhabi plot against the British, the Madras government learnt that he was repairing his forts and secretly gathering cannon and military stores. It sent a commission with troops in 1839. He gave up the fort, his unpaid Rohilla and Arab troops were fired on, and he was sent away to Trichinopoly, where a servant murdered him. His jagir was taken over and his family given pensions.

Nasir-ud-daula (Asaf Jah IV)

1829–1857 CE

Nizam of Hyderabad from 1829 to 1857, eldest son of Sikandar Jah. At his request the British officers who had supervised the districts were withdrawn. Misrule, debt and the arrears of the Hyderabad Contingent followed, and Chandu Lal resigned in 1843. By the treaty of 21 May 1853 Berar, Osmanabad and the Raichur Doab were assigned to the British to pay for the Contingent. A week later he appointed Salar Jang minister. He died on 16 May 1857.

Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy

1846 CE

Member of a family of former poligars (local chiefs) of Uyyalawada and Nossam, in the Kurnool country. In 1846 he raised the kattubadis (village revenue peons) against the Company's government, looted the Koilkuntla treasury and fought troops at Giddalur. He was captured in October 1846 and hanged at Koilkuntla. The district manuals of 1875 and 1886 tell the story from the government's side.

Ghulam Muhammad Ali Khan of Banganapalle

1848–1868 CE

Jagirdar of Banganapalle from 1848 to 1868, called Ghulam Ali Khan in the treaties and in the family history. A grandson of Mansur-ud-daula, he was adopted by his uncle Husain Ali Khan and married to his daughter. In 1848 the Madras government handed back the jagir after clearing the family's debts, but Husain Ali Khan died before his sanad (grant) was issued. Ghulam Ali Khan received the sanad of 1849, with civil and criminal jurisdiction short of the death penalty. In 1862 he received the Crown's sanad permitting succession under Muslim law. He was made a Companion of the Star of India and died on 7 October 1868.

Salar Jung I (Mir Turab Ali Khan)

1853–1883 CE

Minister of Hyderabad for thirty years (1853–1883) and regent while Mahbub Ali Khan was a child. He was a great-grandson of the minister Mir Alam. He began in 1847 as talukdar (district officer) of districts in Telangana and became minister at twenty-four in 1853. He kept the Nizam's government on the British side in 1857. He reorganised the state: salaried revenue officers in place of revenue farmers, a revenue survey and settlement, civil and criminal courts, departments under four ministers (1868) and better finances. He died on 8 or 9 February 1883.

Afzal-ud-daula (Asaf Jah V)

1857–1869 CE

Nizam of Hyderabad from 1857 to 1869, eldest son of Nasir-ud-daula. He came to the throne on 16 May 1857, as the rising against the Company spread through northern India. With his minister Salar Jang he kept Hyderabad on the British side; the Residency was attacked on 17 July 1857 and the attack was driven off. By the treaty of 1860 Osmanabad and the Raichur Doab were given back to him, a debt of fifty lakhs was cancelled and Shorapur was added to his state; Berar stayed in British trust. He died on 26 February 1869.

Maulvi Allauddin

c. 1857–1884 CE

Muslim religious teacher of Hyderabad who, with the Rohilla leader Turrebaz Khan, led the attack on the British Residency on 17 July 1857. He hid in villages near the city for about two years, was caught at Mangalpalli, and was sentenced by the Nizam's court to transportation for life. He was sent to the Andamans in June 1859 and died there in about 1884.

Rajagopala Krishna Yachendra of Venkatagiri

1857–1916 CE

Raja and later Maharaja of Venkatagiri in the Nellore district (1857–1916), head of the Velugoti family, installed in 1879. He built the Indra Mahal and the Town Hall at Venkatagiri and sat twice in the Madras Legislative Council. He was president of the Madras Landholders' Association from its founding in 1890. He was made K.C.I.E. in 1888, Maharaja in 1910 and G.C.I.E. in 1915. His brothers were adopted into the Bobbili, Pithapuram and Jetprole families.

Turrebaz Khan

1857–1859 CE

Rohilla jamadar (captain of armed retainers) who, with Maulvi Allauddin, led the attack on the British Residency at Hyderabad on 17 July 1857. He was wounded and captured, tried by the Nizam's court and sentenced to transportation for life. He escaped from jail in January 1859 and was killed when a police party caught up with him.

Venkata Swetachalapati Ranga Rao of Bobbili

1862 CE

Raja and later Maharaja of Bobbili in the Vizagapatam district. He was born in 1862, a younger son of the Raja of Venkatagiri, adopted in 1872 by the Rani of Bobbili, and installed in 1881. He visited England in 1893 and was made K.C.I.E. in 1895. He sat in the Madras Legislative Council for the great landholders, where he spoke against the Tenancy Bill, and he received the title of Maharaja at the close of the nineteenth century. In 1926 he became the first Pro-Chancellor of the Andhra University.

Fateh Ali Khan, Nawab of Banganapalle

1868–1905 CE

Ruler of Banganapalle from 1868 to 1905, and its first ruler to hold the hereditary title of Nawab, granted in 1876. He was born in 1848, a nephew and son-in-law of Ghulam Muhammad Ali Khan. The Madras government accepted him over the claims of his uncle's widow and of a son-in-law. He was made a Companion of the Star of India. He reorganised the State's courts, police, jail and dispensary, and borrowed three lakhs of rupees from the government in 1877. In January 1905 he was removed from the direct running of the State for bad government, and he died three months later.

Mir Mahbub Ali Khan (Asaf Jah VI)

1869–1911 CE

Nizam of Hyderabad from 1869 to 1911, only son of Afzal-ud-daula. Placed on the throne at the age of two, he grew up under the regency of Salar Jang I and took full powers from the Viceroy Lord Ripon on 5 February 1884. His reign saw the railways, the cotton mills, the code of 1892, the lease of Berar to the British in perpetuity (1902), the purchase of the Falaknuma palace (1897) and the Musi flood of 1908. Remembered in Hyderabad as 'Mahboob Pasha', he died on 31 August 1911.

Mutnuri Krishna Rao

1879–1945 CE

Editor of the Krishna Patrika of Machilipatnam (1879–1945), a leading Telugu nationalist paper. He organised Bipin Chandra Pal's tour of the Telugu districts in 1907, helped build the National College at Machilipatnam, and was jailed in the salt satyagraha of 1930, the civil disobedience of 1932 and the individual satyagraha of 1940–41.

Ayyadevara Kaleswara Rao

1881–1962 CE

Congress leader and lawyer of Vijayawada, born in 1881. He took part in every Congress campaign from the Swadeshi movement of 1905 to Quit India, and was jailed in 1922, 1930, 1932, 1933, 1940–41 and 1942–43. He led the Swaraj Party in Andhra, helped the Hyderabad State Congress in 1947–48, and was Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly, 1956–62.

Salar Jung II (Mir Laik Ali Khan)

1884–1887 CE

Minister of Hyderabad from 1884 to 1887, eldest son of Salar Jung I. After his father's death in 1883 he served as joint administrator with Raja Narendra Pershad and secretary to the Council of Regency, and when Mahbub Ali Khan took full powers on 5 February 1884 he was made minister at about twenty. He put down an Arab riot in 1884, but court intrigue and his own indiscretions, as his contemporaries put it, led him to resign in April 1887. He died on 7 July 1889, aged twenty-seven, leaving an infant son, later Salar Jung III.

Cherukuvada Venkata Narasimham

1887–1964 CE

Congress speaker and writer from Ghantasala in Krishna district (1887–1964). He worked on the nationalist papers Desabhimani and Krishna Patrika, taught at the National College in Machilipatnam, and was jailed for a year each in the non-cooperation movement of 1921, the salt satyagraha of 1930 and the civil disobedience of 1932. He was known as Upanyasa Chakravarti.

Kakani Venkataratnam

1900–1972 CE

Congress leader of Krishna district (1900–1972). He was jailed in the salt satyagraha of 1930 and the civil disobedience of 1932, and detained for three years in the Quit India movement. After independence he was president of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee and Minister for Agriculture. He died at Vijayawada on 25 December 1972, during the movement for a separate Andhra State.

N. G. Ranga

1900 CE

Peasant leader and economist from Nidubrolu in Guntur district (born 1900). He organised ryots' associations in Andhra from 1923, founded the Andhra Socialist Party in 1934, ran schools of politics for young workers, and helped found the All India Kisan Sabha. He was jailed for organising rural ryot societies and again in 1942. In 1951 he left the Congress and founded the Krishikar Lok Party, and he sat in the Rajya Sabha from 1952.

Kishen Pershad

1901–1912 CE

Hereditary Peshkar and twice chief minister of Hyderabad: Prime Minister under Mahbub Ali Khan and Mir Osman Ali Khan from 1901 (confirmed 1902) to 1912, and President of the Executive Council from 1925. A descendant of Chandu Lal through his mother, born in AH 1281 (1864–65), he was a poet in Urdu and Persian. He founded literary journals and held large jagirs near Hyderabad.

Anne Anjayya

1905–1975 CE

Congress and Forward Bloc worker from Mudunur in Krishna district (1905–1975). He trained volunteers from 1920, spread khadi in Hyderabad State in the 1930s, was jailed and fined in the salt satyagraha of 1930 and the civil disobedience of 1932, ran underground papers against the war, and was detained from December 1942 to September 1945.

Baddam Yella Reddy

1906–1978 CE

Telangana leader from Karimnagar district (1906–1978). He was jailed in the salt satyagraha of 1930 and in the Hyderabad State Congress satyagraha of 1938–39. He led the Andhra Mahasabha in 1946 and was a leader of the Communist Party in Hyderabad during the Telangana armed struggle. Later he sat in the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha and the Andhra Pradesh assembly.

Jamalapuram Keshava Rao

1908–1953 CE

Hyderabad State Congress leader from Khammam district (1908–1953). He left a government clerk's post to join the State Congress, was jailed in the satyagraha of 1938–39 and again in the campaign for joining India in 1947–48, and was a member of its Action Committee. He was later nominated to the Constituent Assembly.

Ravi Narayana Reddy

1908 CE

Telangana leader who went to jail in the Hyderabad State Congress satyagraha of 1938. He led the left wing that took control of the Andhra Mahasabha in 1944, and was a leader of the Communist Party in Hyderabad during the Telangana armed struggle. Congress and government sources of the time describe that struggle in sharply different terms.

Mir Osman Ali Khan (Asaf Jah VII)

1911–1948 CE

Seventh and last ruling Nizam of Hyderabad (1911–1948), son of Mahbub Ali Khan. He ruled directly from 1914 to 1919 and then through an Executive Council. His reign brought Osmania University (founded by his farman of 1917, with Urdu as the medium of teaching), the Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar reservoirs built after the Musi flood of 1908, the City Improvement Board, the new High Court and the Osmania General Hospital. His government ended in September 1948, when the Indian Army entered the state and a military governor took charge.

Puchalapalli Sundarayya

1913 CE

Communist leader from Alaganipadu in Nellore district (born 1913). He left his studies for the national movement in 1930, was a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee from 1934, led the left wing of the Andhra Socialist Party, and kept in touch with the Telangana communists during the struggle of 1946–1948. He sat in the Rajya Sabha from 1952.

Komaragiri Narayana Rao

1915–1978 CE

Hyderabad State Congress worker from Khammam (1915–1978). He worked in the Andhra Mahasabha from 1930, joined the State Congress in 1938, and was jailed at Warangal for nine months in the Quit India movement of 1942–43. He later worked for land reform and the Bhoodan movement and wrote books in Telugu and English on Hyderabad.

Akbar Hydari (Nawab Hyder Nawaz Jung)

1917 CE

Hyderabad official and minister under Mir Osman Ali Khan. As Secretary in the Education Department he proposed in 1917 the university that became Osmania University, teaching in Urdu. He was Finance Member of the Executive Council from 1919 into the 1930s, President of the state railway board after the state bought the railway, and chairman of a committee of the princes' ministers on the federal plan in 1934–35. By 1938 he headed the government, which banned the new Hyderabad State Congress that year; he was also Chancellor of Osmania University.

Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao

1917–1984 CE

Communist leader of Nalgonda district (1917–1984) and historian of the Telangana armed struggle. Expelled from Osmania University in the Vandemataram strike, he joined the Communist Party in 1939, led its Nalgonda district committee and joined its state secretariat in March 1948. He sat in the Lok Sabha from 1957 to 1962, later led a revolutionary communist group, and spent long years underground and in jail. His Telugu history of the struggle was published in 1988, after his death.

Arutla Lakshminarasimha Reddy

1918–1976 CE

Lawyer and communist leader from Kolanupaka in Nalgonda district (1918–1976). He organised campaigns against the jagirdars in Nalgonda in 1936–37, led a batch in the Hyderabad State Congress satyagraha of October 1938 and was jailed until April 1939. He joined the Communist Party in 1940, sat on the working committee of the Andhra Mahasabha, and was wanted by the Nizam's government in 1947. He later served in both houses of the Andhra Pradesh legislature.

Qasim Razvi

1946–1948 CE

President of the Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen, the Muslim political party of Hyderabad, from 1946, and leader of its armed volunteers, the Razakars, in 1947–48. He opposed accession to India and responsible government, pressed the Nizam's government in its talks with Delhi, and made speeches in 1948 that the Government of India protested against. Congress-side histories blame the Razakars under him for raids on villages; a US report of August 1948 records his threats against Hindus if India attacked. After the Police Action the Razakars were disbanded and their leaders arrested.

Mir Laik Ali

1947–1948 CE

Last Prime Minister of the Nizam's government of Hyderabad, from December 1947 to 17 September 1948. He took office after the Standstill Agreement crisis, negotiated with Delhi in 1948 and, according to a US intelligence report of August 1948, accepted the draft agreement of June 1948 that the Nizam then rejected. His ministry raised spending on the army and police and turned to the United Nations; he resigned on the day the Nizam ordered a ceasefire. Accounts of him differ sharply between the Congress-side histories, the new government of 1949 and his own later book.

J. N. Chaudhuri

1948–1949 CE

Indian Army officer who commanded the main force in the Police Action against Hyderabad in September 1948 and then governed the state as Military Governor until 1 December 1949. With a cabinet nominated by the Government of India, he disbanded the Razakars and other private armies, brought in officers from the Indian provinces and toured the districts; his government's publicity of 1949 presented his rule as secular and even-handed.

Abdul Wahab Khan

before 1618 CE

Abyssinian general of Bijapur who took Kurnool from Gopala Raja, a grandson of Aliya Rama Raya, early in the seventeenth century. He governed it for about sixteen years as the first Bijapur governor of the town. He died in AH 1028 (1618) and is buried in the two-domed tomb on the bank of the Handri at Kurnool.

Akkanna

before 1686 CE

Telugu Brahmin, brother of the minister Madanna, who commanded the army of Abul Hasan Qutb Shah of Golconda in the 1670s and 1680s. With his brother he received Shivaji at Hyderabad in 1677. The Mughal peace terms of 1685 demanded his dismissal with his brother's, and the two were murdered together at Golconda in March 1686.

Ananda Gajapati Raju

before 1897 CE

Maharaja of Vizianagaram, the greatest zamindari of the Madras Presidency, from 1879 (1878 in Maclean's chronology) until his death without children on 23 May 1897. A son of Vijayarama Gajapati Raju III, he held the personal title of Maharaja, sat for many years in the Madras Legislative Council and was made G.C.I.E. in 1892. He maintained the first-grade college at Vizianagaram, and in 1883 he laid the foundation stone of the Town Hall at Madras. His will of 1896 led to a long suit over the succession.

Anwar-ud-din Khan

before 1749 CE

Nawab of the Carnatic (Arcot) from 1744 until he was killed at the battle of Ambur in 1749, and the founder of the family of the later Nawabs, the Walajahs. He was an officer of Nizam-ul-Mulk. From 1725 to 1741 he governed the Ellore and Rajahmundry country in the Telugu north, and then the Nizam gave him Arcot. His sons Mahfuz Khan and Muhammad Ali fought beside him at Ambur against Chanda Sahib, Muzaffar Jang and the French. Muhammad Ali escaped to Trichinopoly and, with English support, won his claim to the Nawabship.

Bulusu Sambamurti

Congress leader of Kakinada and the Godavari districts who pressed for complete independence from 1924. He presided over the Andhra Provincial Independence League in 1928, was jailed for a year for campaigning against the Simon Commission, broke the salt laws at Chollangi in 1930, and was badly beaten by the police at Kakinada. He later became Speaker of the Madras Legislative Assembly.

Burgula Ramakrishna Rao

Lawyer and Congress leader of Hyderabad State. He was among the moderate leaders of the Andhra Mahasabha up to 1941, was arrested in the Quit India satyagraha of 1942 and led a satyagraha batch in May 1947. After the first general elections he became Chief Minister of Hyderabad State in 1952. He took part in the talks of February 1956 that settled the terms for joining Telangana to Andhra, and in October 1956 he was named governor of Kerala.

Daud Khan Panni

before 1715 CE

Afghan general of Aurangzeb and his successors (died 1715). He served under Zulfiqar Khan at the siege of Jinji. He held the Kurnool country as a jagir (land grant) and Arcot as faujdar (military governor), and his Afghans captured the rebel prince Kam Bakhsh near Hyderabad in 1709. As Zulfiqar Khan's deputy he governed the six provinces of the Mughal Deccan until 1713. He was sent against the new viceroy Husain Ali Khan and was killed near Burhanpur. His brother Ibrahim Khan, Bahadur Khan Panni, held Kurnool until he fell at Shakar Kheda in 1724. Their successors were the Nawabs of Kurnool, whose line ended in 1839. Kirkpatrick's sketch of the family makes his father, Khizr Khan Panni, its founder, and Ibrahim his nephew.

Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya

Congress leader of Guntur district, called Andhra Ratna. In April 1921 he led most of the people of Chirala and Perala to leave their homes rather than pay the taxes of a new municipality. He ran their camp on panchayat (village council) lines for eleven months and raised the Ramadandu volunteer corps.

J. Vengala Rao

Political leader of Andhra Pradesh. He was a member of the Andhra Pradesh assembly from 1962 to 1978, Home Minister of the state from 1969 to 1971 and Chief Minister from 1973 to 1978, the years after the Six-Point Formula. He was one of the leaders who met the Prime Minister during the Telangana agitation of 1969. Later he sat in the Lok Sabha for Khammam (1984–1991) and was Union Minister of Industries.

Jamshid Quli Qutb Shah

before 1550 CE

Second Qutb Shahi sultan of Golconda (1543–1550), the third son of Sultan Quli. The Golconda chronicle says he had his father killed at prayer and blinded the heir, his brother Qutb-ud-din. His reign was spent in wars with Bidar and Bijapur, and his younger brother Ibrahim fled to Vijayanagara. He died of a long illness in 1550.

Kala Venkata Rao

Congress organiser from Amalapuram in the Godavari district. He left his B.Sc. studies at Machilipatnam in the non-cooperation movement of 1920–21 and was jailed then. He was among the leaders banned from public work in 1932, was sentenced in the satyagraha of 1940–41, and on 29 July 1942 drafted the Andhra Congress instructions known as the Kurnool circular.

Konda Venkatappayya

Congress leader of Guntur, known as Deshabhakta. He started the Krishna Patrika in 1902, led the movement for a separate Andhra province after 1910, and resigned from the Madras Legislative Council during non-cooperation. He headed the Guntur no-tax campaign of 1922 and was the Andhra 'dictator' of the salt satyagraha of 1930.

Kundavadevi

Chola princess, daughter of the Chola king Rajaraja I and younger sister of Rajendra Chola I. Early in the 11th century she married the Eastern Chalukya king Vimaladitya. She was the mother of Rajaraja Narendra. Her marriage began the alliance through which her grandson Kulottunga I came to rule the Chola empire.

Kusumaditya (Chalukya of Mudigonda)

Chief of the Mudigonda branch of the Chalukyas, son of Bottu-Beta, known from the Kukkunur copper plates found near Bhadrachalam. They tell how a disaster struck in the first year of his rule, and his ministers Indaparaju and Remaraju carried him into exile for twelve years. They brought him back to rule the Visuru-nadu, and he rewarded them with an agrahara (village grant) on the Godavari. Its editor dated the letters to about 1200; P. V. Parabrahma Sastry placed Kusumaditya and his brother Nagati about 1218.

Madanna

before 1686 CE

Telugu Brahmin who became chief minister (wazir) of Abul Hasan, the last Qutb Shahi sultan of Golconda, about 1673, with the title Surya Prakash Rao. With his brother Akkanna he ran the kingdom for some twelve years. He allied it with the Marathas against the Mughals and kept an office at Bezwada. Aurangzeb made the employment of the two Brahmin brothers a charge against the king. They were murdered at Golconda in March 1686.

Mahmud Gawan

before 1481 CE

Persian merchant who became chief minister of the Bahmani sultanate (c. 1461–1481). He was regent for two boy kings, fought in Telangana and on the west coast, reorganised the provinces and the army, and founded a great college at Bidar. Muhammad Shah III had him executed on a forged charge of treason in 1481.

Malik Hasan Bahri

before 1486 CE

Bahmani noble, born a Brahman and brought up as a Muslim. As Nizam-ul-Mulk he took Rajahmundry and Kondapalli or Kondavidu for Muhammad Shah III in about 1471, and governed all of Telingana. He resented its division by Mahmud Gawan and led the plot that had the minister executed in 1481. He then ruled the kingdom as Malik Naib until he was killed in 1486 after a campaign at Warangal. His son Ahmad founded the Nizam Shahi kingdom of Ahmadnagar.

Mir Ali Raza Khan (Mir Sahib)

before 1781 CE

Brother-in-law of Haidar Ali and governor of Gurramkonda, who died in 1781. His family had held Gurramkonda as a jagir (land grant) under Golconda until the Nawabs of Cuddapah took it from them. As Haidar's commander at Sira, he surrendered the fort to the Marathas in 1767 and received Gurramkonda from them. He came back to Haidar's side in 1768 and held Gurramkonda for him. In 1779 he led the first attack on the Nawab of Cuddapah. Haidar gave him the conquered country, with Gurramkonda, as a military grant, for which he had to keep 3,000 horse. He was buried in a mosque at the foot of Gurramkonda fort.

Mir Jumla (Mir Muhammad Said Ardastani)

before 1663 CE

A Persian merchant who became chief minister and army commander of Abdullah Qutb Shah of Golconda. He is known by the title of his office, Mir Jumla. He conquered the Karnatak south of the Krishna, including Gandikota and the diamond country of Cuddapah, and he leased the diamond mines. His quarrel with the king in 1655–56 brought the Mughal prince Aurangzeb to besiege Golconda. He then joined Mughal service as Mu'azzam Khan and died in 1663 after an expedition to Assam.

Mubariz Khan (Khwaja Muhammad, Imad-ul-Mulk)

before 1724 CE

Last Mughal governor of Haidarabad (Hyderabad), which he ruled for nearly twelve years from about 1713. He came from Balkh and had governed Gujarat and Malwa. He fought the Marathas instead of paying them the chauth (a quarter of the revenue). He began the city wall of Hyderabad and held lands on the coast as far as Srikakulam (Chicacole). In 1724 the court at Delhi made him viceroy of the Deccan against Nizam-ul-Mulk. He was defeated and killed with two of his sons at Shakar Kheda in Berar on 11 October 1724 (Irvine's date).

Najib-ullah Khan

Brother of the Nawab Muhammad Ali Walajah and governor of Nellore in the 1750s. In 1753 the adventurer Muhammad Kamal drove him out of Nellore, but he won it back and had Kamal beheaded. In 1757 he refused his brother's demand for an extra payment and rebelled. His garrison beat off the attack of the Nawab's army and an English force under Colonel Forde. He went over to the French, received Bussy at Nellore in 1758 and joined Moracin against Tirupati. When the French siege of Madras failed in 1759, he killed the Frenchmen with him and was confirmed in Nellore for a tribute of 30,000 pagodas. In 1762 an English force under Caillaud took the Nellore fort from him for the Nawab.

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy

Congress leader and member for Kalahasti in the Andhra Legislative Assembly. He was Deputy Chief Minister of the Andhra State at Kurnool from 1953 to 1956 and one of the Andhra leaders who agreed the terms for the union with Telangana in February 1956. On 1 November 1956 he was sworn in as the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, and he was still Chief Minister in 1958.

Nyapathi Subba Rao

Lawyer of Rajahmundry and a leader of the moderate wing of the Congress in the Telugu districts. During the Vandemataram years of 1905–1908 he led the Swadeshi movement at Rajahmundry, interceded for expelled students, defended the men charged after the Kakinada club riot of 1907 and opened the National High School at Rajahmundry. In 1917 he signed the Madras Congress call for passive resistance to free the Home Rule leaders.

P. V. Narasimha Rao

Political leader from Andhra Pradesh. He was a member of the state assembly from 1957 to 1977 and a minister from 1962. As Chief Minister from 1971 to 1973 he faced the agitation that followed the Supreme Court's Mulki judgment of October 1972, and on 17 January 1973 the Governor reported his resignation. President's rule followed the next day. He sat in the Lok Sabha from 1977 to 1997, held several Union ministries and became Prime Minister.

Pattabhi Sitaramayya

Congress leader of Machilipatnam and historian of the Indian National Congress. He worked for the National College and khadi in the Krishna district, planned the salt satyagraha in the Telugu districts in 1930, and was arrested during the boycott of the Simon Commission and again in 1930, 1932 and 1942. In 1939 he lost the election for Congress president to Subhas Chandra Bose.

Potti Sriramulu

before 1952 CE

Began a fast at Madras on 19 October 1952 for the forming of a separate Andhra State, and died on the night of 15 December 1952, the 58th day. His death set off protests across the Andhra districts. Four days later the Government of India announced that the state would be formed, and it came into being on 1 October 1953.

Rustam Dil Khan

before 1708 CE

Mughal subahdar (governor) of Haidarabad (Hyderabad) under Aurangzeb, and son of the earlier subahdar Jan Sipar Khan. He built the Kali Masjid outside the Yaqutpura gate in AH 1114 (1702). After Aurangzeb's death he submitted to the rebel prince Kam Bakhsh. The prince suspected him of a plot and had him trampled to death by an elephant in 1708.

Saadatullah Khan

before 1732 CE

Nawab of the Carnatic, with his capital at Arcot, from about 1710–13 until his death in 1732. A Navayat, born Muhammad Saeed, he was the diwan (finance officer) and faujdar (military governor) of the Mughal general Daud Khan Panni. He followed Daud Khan in the government of the Carnatic below the Ghats, which ran along the coast from Guntur to the Coleroon and took in Nellore. A chronology of Sidhout says that he took the place in 1694 and appointed its fort commander, years before he became Nawab. His faujdar governed Nellore. He granted the jagir of Udayagiri in 1720. With the Pathan Nawabs of Cuddapah, Kurnool and Savanur he took a large payment from Mysore. He left the Nawabship to his nephew Dost Ali.

Saluva Timma (Timmarasu)

Chief minister of Vira Narasimha and of Krishnadeva Raya of Vijayanagara, known in Telugu tradition as Timmarasu and Appaji, 'father'. Nuniz says he saved Krishnaraya from being blinded and made him king. He managed the campaign against Orissa, took Kondavidu in 1515 and governed it through his family, the Nadindla brothers. Nuniz says the king later blinded and imprisoned him, suspecting him of poisoning the young prince. Telugu tradition makes the king and his minister the heroes of many tales.

Shahji Bhonsle

before 1664 CE

Maratha captain of hired soldiers and father of Shivaji. He served the Nizam Shahs of Ahmadnagar, and from 1636 the Adil Shahs of Bijapur. As second in command to Randaula Khan, he took part in Bijapur's conquest of the Karnatak. He was given a jagir (land grant) round Bangalore and Kolar, a country taken from the forebears of the Telugu poligars of Punganur. He kept a court at Bangalore and died in 1664. His son Vyankoji inherited his Karnatak jagir.

Siddi Jauhar (Salabat Khan)

before 1662 CE

Abyssinian officer of Bijapur who held Kurnool as his government and jagir (land grant) under Ali Adil Shah II. Given the title Salabat Khan, he besieged Shivaji in Panhala in 1660. Suspected of letting him escape, he withdrew to Kurnool, rose against the king in 1662 and was killed by his own followers. His son-in-law was Siddi Masud of Adoni.

Simhavarman II (Pallava)

Pallava king of the Nellore–Guntur country, son of the crown prince Vishnugopa. Four of his grants survive. All give villages in the Guntur and Nellore districts and were issued from camps, not from Kanchi: the second Omgodu grant (year 4), the Pikira grant from Menmatura (year 5), the Mangalur grant from Dasanapura (year 8) and the Vilavatti grant (year 10). Many scholars date his accession to 436 from a Jain work, the Lokavibhaga; others place him about 500.

Skandavarman (Salankayana)

Salankayana king of Vengi, known from two Sanskrit grants of his first regnal year, from Kanteru and Kanukollu. The Kanukollu plates, published in 1960, make him a son of Hastivarman II and a great-grandson of Hastivarman I, a cousin of Nandivarman II; before they were found he was usually placed after Nandivarman II as the last known king of the line.

Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk

before 1543 CE

Persian-born officer of the Bahmani sultanate who governed Telingana from Golconda. He conquered much of Telangana and the Krishna–Godavari coast, and founded the Qutb Shahi dynasty. He was assassinated in 1543. According to the Golconda chronicle, he was killed at prayer in the mosque of Golconda fort. According to Ferishta, a slave killed him while he was examining jewels.

Swami Ramananda Tirtha

Leader of the Hyderabad State Congress, which the Nizam's government banned before it could meet in 1938. He was imprisoned in its satyagrahas of 1938, 1940 and 1942. As its president from 1946 he led the 'Join Indian Union' movement for Hyderabad's accession to India, which ended with the integration of the state in 1948.

Tanguturi Prakasam

Barrister and Congress leader of the Telugu districts of Madras. He chaired the Madras meeting against the Rowlatt Bills in 1919, gave up his practice during non-cooperation, led the salt satyagraha in Madras city in 1930 and became Revenue Minister in 1937. He later served as Chief Minister of Madras and then as the first Chief Minister of the Andhra State. His ministry sat at Kurnool, and it fell after a vote of no confidence in November 1954.

Tenneti Viswanatham

Congress leader of Visakhapatnam. In the 1920s he was among the Andhra leaders who pressed for complete independence, and in 1928 he was treasurer of the Andhra Provincial Independence League. He led the salt satyagraha in Visakhapatnam district in 1930, was banned from public work in 1932, sat on the Andhra Congress Working Committee in 1937 and was detained in the Quit India movement of 1942.

Unnava Lakshminarayana

Lawyer and Congress worker of Guntur. Government intelligence reports named him during the Vandemataram movement; he gave up his legal practice in the non-cooperation movement, and in 1921 he was jailed for a year after going to enquire into the forest troubles of Palnadu. In 1932 the government forbade him, with Unnava Lakshmibayamma and others, to hold a civil disobedience conference.

Vijayarama Raju II of Vizianagaram

before 1794 CE

Raja of Vizianagaram from 1759 to 1794. He was adopted as a boy after Vijayarama Raju I died at Bobbili (1757) and Ananda Raju died (1759). With his half-brother Sitarama Raju he made the Vizianagaram family the strongest power in the Vizagapatam country under the East India Company, and they took the lands of the smaller zamindars. In 1793 his estate was seized for unpaid revenue and he was ordered to leave the district. He camped at Padmanabham, and he was killed there with his Rajput followers when the Company's troops attacked on 10 July 1794.

Chittoor

1911 CE

Town in southern Rayalaseema. It was the headquarters of the North Arcot district in the 1890s. From 1 April 1911 it was the headquarters of the new Chittoor District, formed from the Telugu taluks of North Arcot and two taluks of the Deccan districts, with Chandragiri, Madanapalle and Chittoor divisions.

Adilabad

Town in the forested north of Telangana, also called Edlabad, head of the district formed in 1905 from the old Sirpur Tandur sub-district of the Nizam's Dominions. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 describes a thinly peopled, unsurveyed land of forests, Gond villages, cotton and Telugu and Marathi speech, without a railway or metalled road; the census of 1931 records rapid road building there.

Amarchinta

Town in the Mahbubnagar district of Telangana (in 1909 in the Raichur district of Hyderabad State). It gave its name to the Amarchinta or Atmakur samasthan, a tributary estate of 69 villages north of the Krishna, with its raja's fort at Atmakur. It paid the Nizam a tribute of Rs 6,363 and was noted for fine muslins with gold and silk borders.

Anantapur

Town in Rayalaseema below a great tank that, by tradition, was built under the Vijayanagara king Bukka I. It was the seat of the Hande poligars (local chiefs). Later it was the seat of Thomas Munro as Principal Collector of the Ceded Districts (1800–07), and of the Bellary Collectorate until 1840. It became a municipality in 1869. In 1882 it became the headquarters of the new Anantapur District, formed from the southern taluks of Bellary.

Arcot

Town on the Palar west of Madras, the capital of the Nawabs of the Carnatic in the eighteenth century. Their province ran along the coast from Guntur to the Coleroon and took in Nellore, and it was also called the province of Arcot. Clive held the town against Chanda Sahib's army in 1751, and Haidar Ali took it in 1780. Tipu Sultan blew up two sides of its fort before leaving the Carnatic. Its mint struck the Nawabs' coins, and the 'Arcot rupee' was coined in their name at Madras.

Aurangabad

City in the Marathi-speaking north-west of the former Hyderabad State (now in Maharashtra), founded as Fatehnagar by Malik Ambar in 1610 and renamed by Aurangzeb. Asaf Jah came here as viceroy of the Deccan, and according to the Imperial Gazetteer he later made Hyderabad his capital. Salabat Jang's court and Bussy's French troops were at Aurangabad in the 1750s. Under the Nizams it was the head-quarters of a Division and a cantonment of the Hyderabad Contingent. Asaf Jah is buried at Khuldabad nearby.

Banganapalle

Town in the Erramala valley of the old Kurnool district. It was the capital of the small nawabi state of Banganapalle, from the time of the Mughal killedar (fort commander) Muhammad Beg Khan in the early eighteenth century until the Madras government took over its administration in February 1948. It was known for its gardens and orchards on the Jurreru stream, its mangoes, oranges and lacquerware, and an old diamond mine near the town. It lay on the road from Gooty to Cumbum, and declined after the railway bypassed it.

Bukkarayasamudram

Village at the eastern end of the great tank of Anantapur, named 'king Bukka's sea' after Bukka I of Vijayanagara. A Kanarese inscription of 1364 says that his minister Anantarasa dug the tank. The Anantapur chronicle names the builder Chikkappa Wadeyar, and makes Anantapur, at the western end, the village named after his wife. In the sixteenth century it became a seat of the Hande poligars (local chiefs) of Anantapur.

Chandavolu (Chandole)

Village in the western Krishna delta, the old Tsandavolu of the Repalle taluk. E. Hultzsch identified it with Sanadavrolu, the capital of the Velanati Chodas. Gordon Mackenzie (1883) described it as a place of great antiquity, with temple inscriptions of the 1150s–1170s, finds of gold and the foundations of extensive buildings. It appears in the ballad of the Palnadu heroes.

Chandragiri

Town on the Swarnamukhi below a granite hill fort, seven miles from Tirupati in the old North Arcot (later Chittoor) district. Krishnadeva Raya kept his brothers and nephew in its fortress. After 1565 it became the residence of the Aravidu kings, who are said to have moved there from Penukonda. From here Sriranga granted the English the site of Fort St. George in 1639. Golconda took it in 1646. Its palace, the Raja Mahal, survives.

Eluru (Ellore)

Town in the West Godavari district, the seat of the Ellore sarkar (district), one of the five Northern Circars of the Qutb Shahi and Mughal coast. Its carpet weaving was famous in the seventeenth century. Under the Mughals it had a qazi's court, a kotwal (police chief) and a market officer. Its assessment of about 5.6 lakhs of rupees stood on the imperial records until the French took the Circars in 1753.

Gangaikondacholapuram

Village in the Tamil country, 38 miles north-east of Tanjore, that was the capital founded by the Chola king Rajendra I and named after his title Gangaikonda-Chola, 'the Chola who took the Ganges'. The later king Virarajendra returned there after his campaign in the Vengi country and displayed the booty he had brought from it.

Guntur (Murtazanagar)

Town south of the Krishna that gave its name to the Guntur or Murtazanagar sarkar (district), the southernmost of the five Northern Circars of the Qutb Shahi and Mughal coast. Its standard assessment of about 11.7 lakhs of rupees, more than half of it crown land, was entered on the Mughal records after 1687. The Mughals counted the coast south of it as the Haidarabadi Karnatak. It passed to the East India Company only in 1788.

Halebidu

Village in the Belur taluk of Hassan district, Mysore (now Karnataka), the site of Dorasamudra (Dvarasamudra), capital of the Hoysala kings from the 12th century until it was sacked by Malik Kafur's army in 1311 and destroyed by a Tughluq army later. Its unfinished double temple of Hoysalesvara, with friezes of elephants, lions, horsemen and scenes from the Ramayana, and the lost Kedaresvara temple were described by James Fergusson and James Burgess.

Hampi (Vijayanagara)

Hamlet on the Tungabhadra in the Hospet taluk of the old Bellary district, now in Karnataka. It lies among the ruins of Vijayanagara, 'the city of victory', the capital of the empire from about 1336 to 1565. The ruins cover about nine square miles of granite hills. The Muslim allies sacked the city after the battle of 1565, and the court fled to Penukonda. Hampi is outside the Telugu country. It is included here as the capital of the empire that ruled Rayalaseema and, for a time, the Telugu coast.

Hyderabad

City on the Musi founded by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah around 1589–91 as Bhagnagar. It was the Qutb Shahi capital until 1687, then a Mughal provincial seat. From the 1720s it was the capital of the Asaf Jahi Nizams.

Kadapa (Cuddapah)

Town near the Penner river and headquarters of the district to which it gave its name. A Golconda officer is thought to have built its fort about 1570. In the early eighteenth century it became the capital of the Pathan Nawabs of Cuddapah. Haidar Ali took it in 1779 and gave the country to his brother-in-law Mir Sahib. Tipu Sultan ceded the Cuddapah districts to the Nizam in 1792, and the Nizam ceded them to the East India Company in 1800. The town became the district headquarters in 1817.

Kalyani (Basavakalyan)

Town in the Bidar district of Karnataka, outside the Telugu country, formerly in the Nizam's Dominions. J. F. Fleet identified it with Kalyana or Kalyanapura, the capital of the Western Chalukyas from the time of Somesvara I, and of the Kalachuris after them. According to the poet Bilhana, Somesvara I 'made the town'. Fleet found no ancient remains there.

Kanchipuram

City in the Tamil country, the capital of the Pallava kings. The earliest Pallava charter of the Telugu country, the Mayidavolu plates, was issued from Kanchipura. So were later Pallava grants of villages in the Ongole and Nellore country. The Chalukyas besieged the city in the 7th and 8th centuries, and the Chola Aditya I conquered it at the end of the 9th.

Khammam

Town in Telangana. In 1909 it was the head-quarters of the Khammamett taluk of the Warangal district of Hyderabad State, and the district's chief trading place after Mathwada near Warangal. In 1847 the future minister Salar Jang I, aged nineteen, began his career as talukdar (revenue officer) of the district.

Kolanupaka

Village in the Nalgonda district of Telangana, the Kollipake of the Western Chalukya records. In the 11th and 12th centuries it was the seat of the Kollipake seven-thousand province. A Choda chief, the Paramara prince Jagaddeva and the prince Somesvara (the future Somesvara III) governed it for the kings of Kalyani. Kannada inscriptions there run from 1033 to the reign of Jagadekamalla II.

Kollapur

Town in the Mahbubnagar district of Telangana. From the early nineteenth century it was the residence of the rajas of the Jatprole samasthan, one of the five chief tributary estates of Hyderabad State. In 1901 the estate had 89 villages and 31,613 people, and it paid the Nizam a tribute of Rs 73,537. Its raja was then a younger brother of the Raja of Venkatagiri, adopted into the family.

Kondavidu

Village and hill fortress in Guntur district. It was the capital of the Reddi kings in the 14th and early 15th centuries, a prize fought over by Orissa, Vijayanagara and Golconda in the 16th, and the seat of the Murtazanagar or Kondavidu Circar.

Kurnool

Walled town where the Handri meets the Tungabhadra, the headquarters of the Kurnool district. Tradition says its fort was built in Achyuta Raya's time. Early in the seventeenth century the Bijapur general Abdul Wahab took it from Gopala Raja, a grandson of Aliya Rama Raya. It was then governed from Bijapur until the Mughal conquest of 1686–88. The two-domed tomb of Abdul Wahab (1618) is its chief old building. From the Mughal conquest until 1839 Kurnool was the seat of the Pathan Nawabs of Kurnool. The French stormed the fort in 1751. In 1839 the last Nawab gave it up to a British commission, and the town became the headquarters of a British district. From 1 October 1953 Kurnool was the capital of the new Andhra State, and its Legislative Assembly met there. In November 1953 the Assembly debated moving the capital, but the resolution was lost. Andhra Pradesh, formed on 1 November 1956, had Hyderabad as its capital.

Mahbubnagar

Town in south-western Telangana, formerly called Palmur, head of a district of the Nizam's Dominions formerly known as Nagar Karnul. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 describes a Telugu-speaking district on the Krishna, with the samasthans of Wanaparthy, Gopalpet and Jatprole, the silk weavers of Narayanpet, a revenue survey that doubled the recorded farm land, and the great famine of 1876–78.

Medak

Hill-fort town in western Telangana that gave its name to a district and, from 1905, to the Medak Gulshanabad Division of the Nizam's Dominions, although the district headquarters were at Sangareddy. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 describes the fort with its Dutch gun of 1620, the Wesleyan mission of 1887, a rice-growing district that the gazetteer called free of famine thanks to its tanks, the new Manjra canal of 1904 and the revenue settlements of 1892–1905.

Nalgonda

Town in southern Telangana, head of a district of the Nizam's Dominions. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 describes its fort, its market of Osmanganj and the Telugu-speaking district around it, which gained Cherial (Jangaon) and Kodar in 1905. The district suffered in the famines of 1877 and 1899–1900, and in 1946–48 it was a centre of the peasant struggle and of Razakar raids.

Nellore

Town on the Penner near the east coast, called Vikramasimhapura in its medieval inscriptions. From about 1205 it was the capital of the Telugu Chodas, the Madhurantaka Pottapi-Cholas. Tammusiddhi was anointed there, and Tikka I and Manumasiddhi II ruled the Pakanadu from it. Kakatiya armies restored Manumasiddhi there, and the Pandya Sundara Pandya claimed to have been crowned there. In the eighteenth century it belonged to the Nawabs of the Carnatic (Arcot). Their brother Najib-ullah held it and rebelled in 1757, and he beat off an assault by the Nawab's army and an English detachment. In 1801 it became the headquarters of a British district.

Nizamabad

Town in north-western Telangana, formerly Indur, head of the district renamed Nizamabad in 1905. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 describes the Indur fort turned into a Central Jail, the railway to Manmad, rice and silk, and a revenue survey finished in 1898. The great Nizam Sagar irrigation scheme, finished in 1931, watered the Bodhan, Nizamabad, Armur and Yellareddy taluks.

Ongole

Town on the Gundlakamma in the old Guntur district, now the headquarters of Prakasam district. H. Krishna Sastri suggested that it was the Omgodu given away in two Pallava copper-plate grants. The country round it was the Karmarashtra (later Kammanadu) of the Pallava and Eastern Chalukya charters. In the eighteenth century Ongole belonged to the Nawabs of the Carnatic (Arcot). The Company took over its management in 1790 and its government in 1801, when it was joined to the Nellore district.

Palvancha

Town in the Khammam district of Telangana. It was first the seat of the Paloncha samasthan, the tributary estate of the Ashwarao rajas in the forests of the Godavari valley. The family traced its title to the Kakatiya Prataparudra, and its grant of the parganas of Hasanabad and Sankargiri to 1324. It received a sanad (charter) from the Nizam in 1798. In 1901 the estate had about 800 square miles and 38,742 people. The seat later moved to Bhadrachalam and then to Ashwaraopet.

Panugallu (Panagal)

Village on the eastern edge of Nalgonda town in Telangana. It was one of the capitals of the Kandur Choda chiefs, who held the Kandurunadu country under the Western Chalukya kings of Kalyani and later under the Kakatiyas. Its inscriptions include grants of the chief Gokarna Choda (1122) and of his mother Mailamba (1124). P. V. Parabrahma Sastry noted an old temple of the Chalukya period there.

Penukonda

Town at the foot of a fortified hill over 3,000 feet high in the Anantapur district. It was the seat of a Vijayanagara prince from 1354, the refuge of the court after the defeat of 1565, and the capital of the Aravidu kings until they moved to Chandragiri. An inscription says its fort was built in 1354, and Channappa Nayudu repaired it for Tirumala. The Gagan Mahal palace, the Rama and Isvara temples and the Sher Khan mosque stand within it. Bijapur took it about 1652.

Pottapi

Village on the Cheyyeru river in the former Pullampet taluk of Kadapa district. It was the early seat of the Telugu Choda chiefs who called themselves Madhurantaka Pottapi-Cholas. They governed the Pakanadu for the Chola emperors from the 11th or 12th century until they moved to Nellore.

Punganur

Town and seat of a zamindari (landed estate) on the Mysore plateau, in the north-west of the old North Arcot district. It was part of Cuddapah until 1858. Its Telugu poligar family held Kolar until Bijapur took it in 1639, and then held Punganur under Golconda, the Mughals and the Nawabs of Cuddapah. When the Marathas killed the Nawab of Cuddapah in 1757, Punganur passed to them. After about twenty years of contest it went to Haidar Ali, who took it in 1774. After Tipu's fall in 1799 the whole estate was transferred to the East India Company.

Sangareddy

Town north-west of Hyderabad, called Sangareddipet in the Imperial Gazetteer of 1909, which was the headquarters of Medak district in the Nizam's Dominions. It had the district offices, a court and a jail, and the state stud farm at Rajampet nearby; the trading town of Sadasivpet lay ten miles to the west.

Secunderabad

British cantonment (military station) six miles north-east of Hyderabad, named after the Nizam Sikandar Jah. The British subsidiary force was stationed here, paid for by the cession of the Ceded Districts (1800). In 1901 it had 83,550 people, besides Bolarum and Trimulgherry, and was one of the largest military stations in India. The Hyderabad Contingent, absorbed into the Indian Army in 1902, had its head-quarters at neighbouring Bolarum.

Suryapet

Town on the old Hyderabad–Masulipatam road in Nalgonda district, head of a taluk of the Nizam's Dominions. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 records its rice lands and a fast-growing population; in 1948, according to Sarojini Regani's Congress-side history, villages of the taluk were the scene of a no-tax campaign and of killings by Razakars and the Nizam's police.

Suvarnagiri

Seat of Asoka's southern province, named in his Mysore edicts as the residence of a royal prince and his high officers. Its site is unknown: Kanakagiri, the gold country around Maski and a hill in Bihar have all been proposed, and scholars disagree on whether the Kurnool edicts were sent through it.

Venkatagiri

Town in the old Nellore district, the seat of the Velugoti Rajas of Venkatagiri. Their estate was one of the great permanently settled zamindaris (landed estates) of the Madras Presidency, held under a sanad (grant) of 1802. In the 1930s it was the second town of the district, known for its fine lace-bordered saris. The Rajas built the Indra Mahal, a Town Hall and other public buildings there in the 1880s.

Vizianagaram

Town north-west of Visakhapatnam, built round a fort that Vijayarama Raju I of the Pusapati family founded in 1713–14. He named it Vijaya-nagaram, 'place of victory'. The Rajas of Vizianagaram were the most powerful zamindars (landholders) of the Northern Circars. They were Bussy's chief allies in 1754–57 and drew him against Bobbili. Under the East India Company they dominated the Vizagapatam country until the estate was sequestrated (taken over) in 1793, and the Raja was killed at Padmanabham in 1794. The zamindari paid the largest peshkash (tribute) in the Madras Presidency.

Wanaparthy

Town in the Mahbubnagar district of Telangana, seat of the Wanaparthy (Wanparti) samasthan, one of the five chief tributary estates of Hyderabad State. In 1901 the estate had 124 villages and 62,197 people. It paid the Nizam a tribute of Rs 76,883. Until 1727 its rajas had their seat at Sugur.

Yanam

Small town on the Godavari where the Coringa river leaves the Gautami branch. It was a French factory (trading post) from about 1750, and French territory apart from long English occupations in the wars, until the Government of India took over the French Establishments on 1 November 1954. It was famous in the eighteenth century for white long-cloth. Yanam is now a district of the Union Territory of Puducherry, surrounded by the East Godavari country.

Husain Sagar

c. 1562 CE

Large artificial lake between Hyderabad and Secunderabad, formed by a dam that the Golconda chronicle counts among the works of Ibrahim Qutb Shah. The Imperial Gazetteer dates it to about 1575. Bilgrami gives AH 970 (1562) and credits it to Husain Shah Wali, the king's son-in-law, after whom it is named. A tradition printed by Hastings Fraser in 1865 tells how the tank stood empty until Neknam Khan cut a channel from the Musi.

British Residency, Hyderabad

c. 1800–1808 CE

Home of the British Resident at the Nizam's court, on the left bank of the Musi opposite the old city of Hyderabad. It was begun under the Resident Achilles Kirkpatrick with Nizam Ali Khan's leave (1800 in the Imperial Gazetteer, 1803 in Campbell). It was finished about 1807–08 to designs by an engineer named Russell. It has a portico of six Corinthian columns and a durbar hall with furniture said to have belonged to the Prince Regent. It was attacked on 17 July 1857. The Resident held civil and criminal jurisdiction over the Residency bazaars around it.

High Court, Hyderabad

c. 1914–1919 CE

Building of the High Court of Hyderabad State on the bank of the Musi in the old city. It was built during Mir Osman Ali Khan's years of direct rule (1914–1919), at a cost of twenty lakhs of rupees, according to Mudiraj's Pictorial Hyderabad (1929). Mudiraj called it 'a noble edifice and one of the best buildings in India in its architectural beauty'. The court itself, with a Chief Justice and five puisne (junior) judges, already sat in the city in 1909.

Chowmahalla Palace

Main palace of the Nizams in the old city of Hyderabad, west of the Charminar. Campbell (1898) calls it the Char Mahal, 'four palaces'. The Imperial Gazetteer (1909) describes three quadrangles with buildings on either side and large cisterns in the centre, with the zanana (women's quarters) beyond the third court. It was the scene of the Nizams' darbars and state entertainments, including the banquet for Lord Ripon at Mahbub Ali Khan's installation in 1884. In 1929 Mir Osman Ali Khan lived at Chadarghat but held all his darbars here.

Dar-ush-Shifa

Two-storeyed Qutb Shahi hospital and medical college round a square courtyard in the old city of Hyderabad, with a mosque opposite its entrance. Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah built it, and a caravanserai (travellers' inn) and bath were attached. The Golconda chronicle says the king built hospitals and paid their attendants. By 1909 it was a barrack, and in 1927 Bilgrami found it ruinous.

Vijayapuri citadel

Citadel with brick walls and a moat, the heart of the Ikshvaku capital on the Krishna bank in the Nagarjunakonda valley, excavated in 1956–59. Inside and around it the excavators found barracks, royal houses, a stepped tank they connected with the horse sacrifice, temples of Karttikeya and Shiva, a river ghat and a large stadium.

Erragudi edicts of Asoka

c. 250 BCE

Asoka's fourteen Rock Edicts and his Minor Rock Edicts I–II, carved on six boulders of the Yenakonda hill near Erragudi in Kurnool district in the mid-3rd century BCE. They were found in 1928.

Rajula-Mandagiri inscription of Asoka

c. 250 BCE

A badly weathered 15-line copy of Asoka's Minor Rock Edicts I–II on a rock beside the Ramalingesvara temple at Rajula-Mandagiri near Pattikonda, Kurnool district. A Mackenzie surveyor copied part of it around 1800, and the stone was found again in 1953.

Myakadoni inscription of Pulumavi

c. 145 CE

A four-line Prakrit inscription on a granite boulder called Jangli Gundu near Myakadoni, Adoni taluk, Bellary district. It is dated in the eighth year of 'Siri-Pulumavi, King of the Satavahanas'. It records a reservoir dug by a householder and names a district, Satavahani-hara, held by a great general. It is the only Satavahana inscription from Rayalaseema in these sources.

Amaravati inscription of King Sri Sivamaka Sada

c. 150 CE

Fragment of a one-line Prakrit inscription on a carved coping stone of the Amaravati stupa, recording a gift by the 'superintendent of the water establishment' of a king Sri Sivamaka Sada. The king has been taken for the founder Simuka, for Siva Sri Satakarni, or for a ruler of another family altogether.

Kodavali rock inscription of Chandasati

c. 210 CE

A six-line Prakrit inscription cut into a rock-cut well beside a ruined Buddhist mound near Kodavali, north-west of Pithapuram in the Godavari district. It is dated in a regnal year of the Satavahana king Vasishthiputra Chandasati (Chandra Sati) and records a gift by a minister. Its year and wording have been read in three different ways.

Mayidavolu plates of Sivaskandavarman

c. 250 CE

A Prakrit copper-plate grant issued from Kanchipura by the Pallava crown prince Sivaskandavarman to his official at Dhannakada (Amaravati). It gives the village of Viripara in Andhrapatha, the Telugu country, to two Brahmans. It was found in 1899 at Mayidavolu near Narasaraopet and edited by E. Hultzsch in 1901. It is the earliest Pallava copper-plate charter, and it shows the Pallavas ruling as far as the Krishna.

Kanukollu plates of Nandivarman I

c. 350 CE

Prakrit copper-plate grant of the 14th year of the Salankayana king Nandivarman I, issued from Vengipura and found at Kanukollu in the Krishna delta. It gives a village as an agrahara (Brahmin village) to a Brahmin learned in the four Vedas of the Rathakara community. Its editor dated it to the close of the 3rd century, and D. C. Sircar to about the middle of the 4th.

Kolleru plates of Nandivarman II

c. 430 CE

Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the 7th year of the Salankayana king Nandivarman, eldest son of Chandavarman. He issued it from Vengipura, giving a village in the Kuduhara country to 157 Brahmins. It was reported found in the Kolleru lake before 1840. It was the first record of the dynasty to be known, and A. C. Burnell and J. F. Fleet edited it in the 1870s.

Peddavegi plates of Nandivarman II

c. 430 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the 10th year of the Salankayana king Nandivarman II, found near Pedavegi north of Ellore and first published in 1924. It gives land in four villages to a temple of Vishnu. Its four-generation family line, beginning with Hastivarman of Vengi, is the backbone of the dynasty's history.

Vilavatti grant of Simhavarman

c. 446 CE

Sanskrit copper-plate grant issued from Paddukkara in the tenth year of the Pallava king Simhavarman, son of the crown prince Vishnugopa. It gives the village of Vilavatti in Mundarashtra, with the taxes due from it, to the Brahman Vishnusarman. It was found about 1928 at Vavveru in the Kovur taluk of Nellore, and C. R. Krishnamacharlu edited it in 1938. It lists the dues of craftsmen and traders and bears the earliest clear Pallava bull on its seal.

Satara grant of Vishnuvardhana I

c. 616 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of Vishnuvardhana, the founder of the Eastern Chalukya line, issued while he was still only yuvaraja (heir-apparent) under his elder brother Pulakesin II of Badami. It gives a village on the Bhima to three Brahmin brothers and two other men. It is dated in the eighth year of 'the glorious Maharaja', which J. F. Fleet converted to 616 or 617. Found at Satara before 1844 and now in the British Museum, it is the earliest record of the founder.

Timmapuram plates of Vishnuvardhana I

c. 616 CE

A short undated Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Eastern Chalukya founder Vishnuvardhana I Vishamasiddhi. It was dug up in a house site at Timmapuram in Vizagapatam district in 1907. Issued from Pishtapura (Pithapuram), it gives 4,000 nivartanas (a land measure) of land to forty Brahmins. E. Hultzsch read its wording as showing that Vishnuvardhana was still a dependant of his brother Pulakesin II. It is the only record to name Pishtapura as his residence.

Kopparam plates of Pulakesin II

c. 631 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the 21st year of the Chalukya king Pulakesin II, probably 631, found near Kopparam in the Narasaraopet taluk of the Guntur district. It gives a field of 800 nivartanas in Karmarashtra to a Brahmana of Mugamur. E. Hultzsch read its 'Prithividuvaraja' as Pulakesin's brother Vishnuvardhana, still a subordinate in that year. Its first editor, K. V. Lakshmana Rao, identified him with another Chalukya prince.

Chipurupalle plates of Vishnuvardhana I

c. 632 CE

Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Eastern Chalukya founder Vishnuvardhana I, now styled Maharaja, found at Chipurupalle in Vizagapatam district in 1867. It gives a village in the Dimila district to two Brahmin brothers on a lunar eclipse in the 18th year of his reign. J. F. Fleet fixed the eclipse at 7 July 632, the fixed point of the whole Eastern Chalukya chronology. A. C. Burnell had preferred 622 and James Burgess 628. The plates have since been lost.

Chendalur plates of Sarvalokasraya (Mangi-yuvaraja)

673 CE

Five Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Sarvalokasraya Vijayasiddhi, the Mangi-yuvaraja of later grants. They were dug up at Chendalur in the old Ongole taluk with a Pallava grant of the same village. They are dated on a lunar eclipse in the second year of his reign, which F. Kielhorn fixed as 6 May 673, and give the village of Chendarura in Kamma-rashtra to six Brahmins. E. Hultzsch edited them in 1906.

Penukaparu grant of Jayasimha II

c. 696–709 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Eastern Chalukya king Jayasimha II (reigned about 696–709), who calls himself Sakalalokasraya Jayasimha-Vallabha. It gives a field at the village of Penukaparu in the Karma-rashtra district to a Brahmin of Vangiparu. It is the only known grant of this king. It was examined in 1923–24, bought by the Madras Museum and edited by E. Hultzsch in 1926. Its seal shows that he, like Jayasimha I, bore the surname Sarvasiddhi.

Ederu plates of Vijayaditya II

c. 799–843 CE

Three undated Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Vijayaditya II Narendramrigaraja (reigned about 799–843). They were found about 1873 at Ederu in the Nuzvid zamindari, Kistna district. They record the gift, on a solar eclipse, of a field and a house site in the village of Vandrupiteyu to a Brahmin. F. Kielhorn re-edited them in 1899. J. F. Fleet later doubted that they were genuine.

Bezwada plates of Chalukya-Bhima I

c. 888 CE

Five Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Chalukya-Bhima I (reigned about 888–918). They were found on 25 June 1897 in a rock-cut chamber in the quarry compound at Bezwada (Vijayawada). Issued at his coronation, they give the village of Kukiparru to a Vedic scholar. They were the first record found of this king, and the earliest then known to give the full line of Eastern Chalukya kings with the length of each reign.

Chevuru plates of Amma I

c. 918–925 CE

Three undated copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma I (reigned about 918–925). They were dug up about 1928 in a ruined mud house at Chevuru in the Kaikalur taluk of Kistna district, and B. Ch. Chhabra edited them. They were issued at the first-feeding ceremony of the infant prince Vijayaditya (Beta-Vijayaditya V). They make the warrior Vemaraja headman of the village of Umikili for a fixed tribute of eight gold gadyanakas. Their boundaries are in Telugu.

Vemulavada inscription of Arikesari II

c. 930–955 CE

Long Sanskrit inscription, with Kannada titles, on the four faces of a stone pillar beside the sanctum of the Bhimesvara (old Baddegesvara) temple at Vemulavada. It sets out the family line of the Chalukyas of Vemulavada from Vinayaditya-Yuddhamalla to Arikesari II. It describes the northern victories of Narasimha II and Arikesari II's defeat of an army sent against him by Govindaraja. Its editor, N. Venkataramanayya, took Govindaraja to be the Rashtrakuta Govinda IV and thought that this defeat sealed his fate. It records Arikesari's gift of land for a feeding house at a Sun temple in his capital, Lembulavataka. It is undated, and Arikesari reigned about 930–955.

Diggubarru grant of Chalukya-Bhima II

c. 934–945 CE

Five undated Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Chalukya-Bhima II (reigned about 934–945). Sir Walter Elliot obtained them from 'Paganavaram', and they are now in the British Museum. J. F. Fleet edited them in 1884. They give the village of Diggubarru in the Pagunavara district to the Vedic scholar Viddamayya. Their verse account of the civil war after 925 is the only record Fleet knew that names the eight-month king Bhima III.

Gundugolanu plates of Amma II

c. 945–970 CE

Three Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II (crowned 945). They were formerly Sir Walter Elliot's and are now in the British Museum, and where they were found is not known. At the request of the king's parents-in-law, Kama and Nayamamba, they grant a field at the village of Gundugolanu in the Vengi district to a Brahmin. J. F. Fleet edited them in 1884. The grant is notable for leaving Yuddhamalla II out of the list of kings and for saying that Tala imprisoned the boy king Vijayaditya V.

Masulipatam plates of Amma II

c. 945–970 CE

An undated Sanskrit copper-plate charter of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II (crowned 945), found in the record room of the Kistna District Court at Masulipatam. It gives the village of Pedda-Galidiparru in Velanadu to two Jaina temples that two feudatory brothers had built at Vijayavatika (Vijayawada). B. V. Krishna Rao edited it in 1938. It names a Jaina family of chiefs and their teacher, and its editor used it to argue against parts of J. F. Fleet's chronology of the dynasty.

Padamkaluru grant of Amma II

c. 945–970 CE

Five Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II Vijayaditya, formerly in Sir Walter Elliot's collection. They give the village of Padamkaluru in the Pennatavadi district to a Brahmin pilgrim on a lunar eclipse. J. F. Fleet edited them in 1878. They are the grant that dates Amma II's coronation, in Saka 867 (December 945). Where they were found is not recorded.

Vandram plates of Amma II

c. 945–970 CE

Five worn Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II (crowned 945), found in a backyard at Vandram in the Bhimavaram taluk. E. Hultzsch edited them in 1908. They grant a village, Tanderu or Betipundi, as an agrahara (Brahmin village) to Kuppanayya, a minister who had founded a shrine of Shiva at Draksharama. Their opening repeats the Yelavarru grant almost word for word, and one plate is engraved over another grant of the same king.

Vemalurpadu plates of Amma II

945–970 CE

Five undated Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II (945–970). The Madras Museum got them in 1910 from a resident of Vemalurpadu, near Phirangipuram in Guntur district. At the request of Durgaraja, great-grandson of Gunaga Vijayaditya III's general Pandaranga, the king gives two fields in the Karma-rashtra district as an agrahara (Brahmin village) to Durgaraja's minister Musiya. E. Hultzsch, who edited them in 1926, found the writer's Sanskrit full of mistakes. The grant adds that Amma II was made heir-apparent at eight and crowned at twelve.

Yelavarru plates of Amma II

c. 945–970 CE

Five Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II (crowned 945), dug up in 1864 at Yelavarru (Elavarru) near Repalle, the very village they grant. On the winter solstice the king gives Elavarru in the Velanandu district to Koramiya, a Brahmin who headed the writing office of the gold treasury. The king's mother had brought Koramiya up. J. F. Fleet edited the plates in 1883, and parts of them are palimpsests, cut down from two older charters.

Arumbaka plates of Badapa

c. 956–999 CE

Five undated Sanskrit copper plates of Badapa, son of Yuddhamalla II, found buried in a pot at Polamuru in the Tanuku taluk in 1921. Badapa claims that, with the help of the Rashtrakuta king called Karnaraja-Vallabha, he drove Amma II out of Vengi. He gives the village of Arumbaka, in the Velanandu district (now in Repalle taluk), to the archer Gandanarayana, a brother-in-law of Amma II, who passes it to his cousin. Editors disagree over whether Badapa really ruled, and for how long.

Mangallu grant of Amma II

c. 956 CE

Five Sanskrit copper plates issued in the name of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II, dug up in the Nandigama taluk and noticed in 1917. The grant says that after eleven years of rule Amma II went to Kalinga because of the Rashtrakuta Krishna III, and that his half-brother Danarnava then ruled. At the request of Kakatya Gundyana, it gives the village of Mangallu (probably Magallu, near Nandigama) to a Brahmin. Later historians took Gundyana for an early Kakatiya. V. Rangacharya edited the grant in 1960 and disputed the 1917 reading of the key passage.

Sripundi plates of Tala II

c. 956–999 CE

Five undated Sanskrit copper plates of Tala II, also called Vishnuvardhana, a younger brother of Badapa and son of Yuddhamalla II. They were found buried at Sripundi (Sripudi, Repalle taluk) in the late 18th century and copied for the Mackenzie collection about 1800, and they reached the Madras epigraphist in 1908. Made 'during the period of his rule', they give a small village near Sripundi to Kuppanayya of the Pallavamalla family, whose father had died in Tala's service. Their family tree leaves out the reign lengths and rearranges the kings of 925–934.

Ranastipundi grant of Vimaladitya

c. 1011–1022 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the eighth year of the Eastern Chalukya king Vimaladitya, found in the Amalapuram taluk of the Godavari delta. V. Venkayya edited it in 1901. It is the only known record of this king, and the earliest to give the dynasty's mythical descent from the Moon and the legend of Vijayaditya and Trilochana-Pallava. It fixed Vimaladitya's coronation at 10 May 1011, and with it the length of the interregnum (the years without a king) in Vengi.

Korumelli plates of Rajaraja I

c. 1022 CE

Five copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Rajaraja I (Rajaraja Narendra). They grant the village of Korumelli in Guddavadi-vishaya to a Brahmin on the occasion of a lunar eclipse. Once in Sir Walter Elliot's collection and now in the British Museum, they were edited by J. F. Fleet in 1885. They give the date of the king's coronation in Saka 944 (August 1022), and tell of his father's marriage to the Chola princess Kundava.

Teki plates of Rajaraja-Chodaganga

c. 1086 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate edict of Chodaganga, surnamed Rajaraja, dated in the 17th year of the reign. Chodaganga was a son of the Chola-Chalukya emperor Kulottunga I and viceroy of Vengi. A cultivator found the plates at Teki in the Godavari delta in 1901. The edict confers honours at weddings on the Teliki families, hereditary servants of the Eastern Chalukyas said to have come from Vijayavata (Vijayawada). E. Hultzsch used it to revise the order of the viceroys of Vengi under Kulottunga I.

Kolanupaka inscription of Tondarasa

1088 CE

A Kannada inscription of 24 December 1088 at Kolanupaka, of the reign of the Western Chalukya Vikramaditya VI. In it the feudatory (subordinate ruler) Tondarasa Chola-maharaja of Kandur, ruling the Kollipake seven-thousand province, gives land and other gifts to the god Uttaresvara. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry identified Tondarasa with the Kandur Choda Tondaya II.

Chellur plates of Vira-Choda

c. 1090 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the 21st year of Vira-Choda, a son of Kulottunga I and viceroy of Vengi. It gives a village to a Vishnu temple that his general Medamarya had built at the agrahara of Chellur near Ramachandrapuram. It was formerly in Sir Walter Elliot's collection, and E. Hultzsch (1890) and J. F. Fleet (1890) edited it. It records Vira-Choda's installation in Saka 1001 (23 August 1078) and the succession of governors of Vengi under the Chola-Chalukya emperor.

Kolanupaka inscription of Jagaddeva

1104 CE

A Sanskrit verse inscription at Kolanupaka (the old Kollipake) in the Nalgonda district, dated Chalukya-Vikrama year 29. P. B. Desai equated the date with 13 March 1104. It traces the Paramara kings of Malwa down to Jagaddeva, son of Udayaditya, whom the Western Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI 'treated as his own son'. It records that the king's general Somala built the temple of Jagaddeva-Narayana at Kollipake while Jagaddeva governed the province from there.

Panugallu inscription of Gokarna Choda

1122 CE

A short Telugu inscription at Panugallu near Nalgonda. In it the Mahamandalesvara Kanduri Gokarna Choda grants the lordships of two villages, with full rights, to a minister's son-in-law and his son. The editor dated it to March 1122.

Tripurantakam inscription of Anantapala

1126 CE

A Kannada inscription of June 1126 in the Tripurantakesvara temple at Tripurantakam, in the old Kurnool district, of the reign of the Western Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI. It says that his general Anantapala was ruling the Vengi twelve-thousand and the Emmedale six-thousand. It also says that Anantapala's nephew Govinda, ruler of the Kondapalli three-hundred, conquered the Chola country. Robert Sewell took it as evidence that the Cholas had lost Vengi to the Western Chalukyas.

Patancheru inscription of Somesvara III

1127 CE

A Kannada inscription at Patancheru, near Hyderabad, of the reign of the Western Chalukya king Bhulokamalla Somesvara III. It records a grant to the astrologer Nanneya Bhatta, made on the day of the king's coronation. P. B. Desai dated that day to 20 February 1127, Chalukya-Vikrama year 51. Desai took the record to identify Patancheru with Pottalakere, a minor Chalukya capital that J. F. Fleet had placed in the Bellary district.

Chellur plates of Kulottunga II (1143)

1143 CE

Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the reign of the Chola king Kulottunga-Chodadeva II, obtained from the karnam of Chellur in the Godavari district and presented by Sir Walter Elliot to the British Museum. After the full Eastern Chalukya family tree, which carries the line through Kulottunga I and Vikrama-Choda to Kulottunga II, it records a grant of villages to Brahmins by Kolani-Katamanayaka, governor of Sarasipuri in a lake in the Vengi country. Its date, written as Saka 1056, was corrected by F. Kielhorn to 24 March 1143.

Chebrolu inscription of Jaya

1213 CE

Sanskrit and Telugu inscription on a pillar of the Nagesvara temple at Chebrolu. It records that the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva gave the town to his general Jaya in Saka 1135 (1213–14), the earliest proved date of his reign, and it lists the lands of the town's temples. It marks the Kakatiya takeover of Velanadu, the country of the Velanati Chodas.

Madras Museum plates of Vema (1345)

1345 CE

A copper-plate grant of 18 March 1345, in which Vema (Prolaya Vema), founder of the Reddi kingdom, gave the village of Atukuru on the Krishna to Brahmans and renamed it Vemapuram. It names his capital as Addanki in the Pungi country and gives the earliest Reddi family tree. It says that he restored the Brahman villages seized by the Muslim conquerors of the Kakatiya kingdom.

Puvvada grant of Prolaya Vema (1346)

1346 CE

Five copper plates of 1346, found in an old well in the Tenali taluk and now in the Andhra Pradesh State Museum, Hyderabad. They record Prolaya Vema's gift of the village of Puvvada to Brahmans in sixty-four shares. The village lay between the forts of Addanki and Vinukonda and was renamed Vemapuri. The ring carries a Nandi seal and the sign-manual (royal signature) Sri Pallava Trinetra.

Penukonda fort inscription (1354)

1354 CE

A Kanarese (Kannada) inscription on a bastion of the north gate of Penukonda fort. It is dated Saka 1276, Jaya, which E. Hultzsch equated with 25 March 1354. It records that the minister Anantarasa built the fort while Bukka I ruled and his son Virupanna governed the province of Penugonde. It is the earliest dated record of the town, and it shows that a prince of the first Vijayanagara dynasty lived there.

Bitragunta grant of Sangama II (1356)

1356 CE

Five copper plates kept in the Collector's office at Nellore, edited by H. Krishna Sastri in 1895. They record a gift to Brahmans by Sangama II, son of Kampa, in Saka 1278 (1356). He gave the village of Bitragunta near Kavali, renamed Srikanthapura, and Simkesari near Pushpagiri in the Cuddapah country. The grant names all five sons of Sangama I, and it makes Kampa, not Bukka, the successor of Harihara I. Krishna Sastri concluded that Sangama II held parts of the Nellore and Cuddapah districts without accepting his uncle Bukka I as overlord.

Bukkarayasamudram tank inscription (1364)

1364 CE

A Kanarese (Kannada) inscription on a stone at Bukkarayasamudram, the great tank at Anantapur. It is dated Saka 1286, Krodhin (1364), in the reign of Bukka Raya of Vijayanagar. As V. Rangacharya summarised it in 1919, it records that the minister Anantarasa Udayar dug the tank and built a temple of Sankara on its banks. The Telugu chronicle translated by C. P. Brown as 'The Wars of the Rajas' gives the same year but names the builder Chikkappa Wadeyar.

Vanapalli plates of Anavema (1380)

1380 CE

Three copper plates of 6 February 1380, found at Vanapalli in the Amalapuram taluk of the Godavari district and now in the Madras Museum. They record Anavema Reddi's gift of the village of Immadilanka, renamed Anna-Vemapura, to his minister and preceptor (religious teacher) Immadi. They name Kondavidu as the king's capital and describe his court.

Tottaramudi plates of Kataya Vema (1411)

1411 CE

Three copper plates of Saka 1333 (1411–12), found at Tottaramudi in the Amalapuram taluk and now in the Madras Museum. By them Kataya Vema of Rajahmundry gave the village of Mallavaram, named after his wife, to a Brahman. They give the family tree of the Kondavidu kings down to Kumaragiri. They also tell how Kataya Vema, Kumaragiri's minister, received the eastern country with Rajahmundry as its capital.

Kondavidu plates of Ganadeva (1455)

c. 1455 CE

Three copper plates, sent to E. Hultzsch from the Kistna district and edited by him in 1891. They record a gift of the village of Chavali in the Repalle taluk to a number of Brahmins by Ganadeva, called Rautaraya, governor of Kondavidu. The gift was made on the day of a lunar eclipse in Saka 1377. The grant praises 'king Kapila' of the Solar race, the Gajapati of Orissa, whose capital was Cuttack. A pillar inscription of the same Ganadeva at Chintapallipadu is a year older, of April 1454.

Raghudevapuram and Dorapalem grants of Raghudeva (1455–56)

1456 CE

Two copper-plate charters of Raghudeva, nephew of the Gajapati Kapilendra and his governor at Rajahmundry. D. C. Sircar edited them in Epigraphia Indica XXXIII (1959–60): one from a set in the collection of the Andhra Historical Research Society at Rajahmundry, and one from a single plate in private hands. The Raghudevapura grant of June 1456 founded an agrahara (Brahmin village) on the Godavari for forty shares of Brahmins, and it gives the first family tree of Kapilendra's family. The broken Dorapalem grant of 1455–56 gave a village on the Godavari to a Brahmin.

Veligalani grant of Kapilesvara (1458)

1458 CE

Ten surviving plates of a copper charter whose first plate is lost, edited by D. C. Sircar and K. H. V. Sarma in 1963. By it the Gajapati Kapilendra (Kapilesvara), camping on the bank of the Godavari on the full moon of Vaisakha, Saka 1380 (27 April 1458), gave the village of Veligalani to 120 Brahmins and renamed it Kapilesvarapura. It is the only known copper-plate grant of the king himself. It has sections in Sanskrit, Telugu and Oriya, names his father and mother, and is the first to give him the titles Gajapati, Gaudesvara and Navakoti-Karnata-Kalavaragesvara.

Chiruvroli grant of Hambira (1461)

1461 CE

Copper plates found in 1941 at Nemalikallu near Ravela in the Guntur district, and edited by D. C. Sircar and K. H. V. Sarma in 1963. They are the only known copper-plate grant of Hamvira (Hambira), son of the Gajapati Kapilendra. On 4 September 1461 he gave the village of Chiruvroli on the Krishna, renamed Hambirapura, to more than a hundred Brahmins. A plate in Oriya, from another grant, was found with them.

Velicherla grant of Prataparudra Gajapati (1510 or 1511)

c. 1510 CE

Three copper plates, registered in 1920–21 when the District Munsiff of Kavali sent them to the epigraphist, and edited by G. Ramadas in 1958. They record a gift by the Gajapati Prataparudra to a Brahmin, made while he held court in the great fort of Undrakonda. He gave the village of Velicherla, east of the fort of Udayagiri in the Jaladanki country of Pakanadu. The grant is dated Saka 1432 in a chronogram (a date hidden in words). Its first editor read the date as 4 October 1510, and Ramadas as 24 October 1511. It shows the Gajapati still master of the Nellore country just before Krishnadeva Raya's campaigns.

Mangalagiri and Kaza pillar inscriptions (1515–1518)

1515–1518 CE

Two four-sided pillars in the Guntur country, one lying near the steps of the hill temple at Mangalagiri and the other in the Kodandaramasvamin temple at Kaza. They carry almost the same Sanskrit text of about 257 lines. H. Luders edited them in 1901. They record that Saluva Timma, minister of Krishnadeva Raya, took Kondavidu from the Gajapati's governors on 23 June 1515. They also list the gifts that his nephews Nadindla Appa and Gopa made as governors of Vinukonda and Kondavidu between 1516 and 1518.

Kondavidu pillar inscription of Nadindla Gopa (1520)

1520 CE

A four-sided pillar near the agrahara (Brahmin village) at Kondavidu, inscribed in Sanskrit and Telugu. H. Luders edited it with H. Krishna Sastri in 1901. It is dated at a lunar eclipse on 2 May 1520. It records that Nadindla Gopa, governor of Kondavidu and nephew of Saluva Timma, rebuilt the temple of Raghunayaka at Kondavidu. He gave the temple the customs on goods on every road of the Kondavidu country, with a list of rates for some fifty articles. The record curses Odda, Telugu and Turuka kings who might break the grant.

Kanuma grant of Sadasiva (1548)

1548 CE

Five copper plates with a boar seal, held by the Collector of Anantapur and edited by S. V. Viswanatha in 1918. They record a gift by the Vijayanagara king Sadasiva in Saka 1470 (1548). He gave the village of Kanuma, in Mundimadugu sima of Gutti valita, to the god Chennakesava and thirty shares of Brahmans. The gift was made at the request of the chief Appalaraja, in the presence of the god Vitthalesvara on the Tungabhadra. Its editor called it the earliest copper-plate grant of Sadasiva then known.

Ma Saheba tank inscriptions (1625)

c. 1625 CE

Two nearly identical Persian inscriptions in Naskh script on black stone tablets. They are in the towers at either end of the dam of the Ma Saheba tank, on the old road from Khairatabad to Golconda. They record that the tank was built by Khanum Agha, daughter of Mir Maqsud Ali Tabataba, wife of Prince Mirza Muhammad Amin and mother of Sultan Muhammad Qutb Shah. In AH 1034 (1624–25) the king granted the tank to Shah Khundkar.

Kanteru plates of the Salankayanas

Two Sanskrit copper-plate grants of Salankayana kings found buried at Kanteru, six miles from Guntur. One is of Skandavarman in his first year, and one of a king Nandivarman, probably Nandivarman II. Both were issued from Vengi, and both gave land to Brahmins of the Maudgalya gotra. One seal shows a crouching bull, the clearest image of the dynasty's emblem.

Kukkunur plates of Kusumaditya

Copper-plate grant in Telugu prose, with Sanskrit verses, of Kusumaditya of the Mudigonda branch of the Chalukyas, found at Kukkunur near Bhadrachalam. It traces the family from Kariya-Gonaga, lord of Koravipura. It tells how Kusumaditya's ministers Indaparaju and Remaraju took him into twelve years of exile and brought him back to the Visuru-nadu, and it grants them the village of Krichchaka on the Godavari. Its editor called it the earliest copper-plate grant written entirely in Telugu prose. It is undated, and estimates range from the 11th century to about 1200.

Omgodu grant of Skandavarman II (No. 1)

Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Pallava king Vijaya-Skandavarman (Skandavarman II), issued from Tambrapa in the 33rd year of his reign. It gives the village of Omgodu in Karmarashtra to the Brahman Golasarman. H. Krishna Sastri edited it in 1920. It gave the earliest known members of the Pallava line of the Nellore–Guntur country and is dated in the old seasonal manner of the Prakrit charters.

Pikira grant of Simhavarman

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant issued from the camp at Menmatura in the fifth year of the Pallava king Simhavarman, son of the crown prince Vishnugopa. It gives the village of Pikira in Mundarashtra to the Brahman Vilasasarman. The village munsiff (headman) of Nelatur in the Ongole taluk sent in the plates, which had been the unclaimed property of a dead ascetic. E. Hultzsch edited the grant in 1906.

Polamuru plates of Madhavavarman Janashraya

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Vishnukundin king Madhavavarman Janashraya, son of Govindavarman and grandson of Vikramahendra. He made it while crossing the Godavari to conquer the east. It gave the village of Polamuru to a Brahmin whose son received the same village again from the Eastern Chalukya king Jayasimha I. Noticed in 1914 and edited in Telugu-country journals, it is the key to the Vishnukundin chronology. But its regnal year, its date and even its king are disputed.