Inscriptions & sources

Mauryas & Satavahanas

c. 300 BCE – 225 CE

The Telugu lands enter written history with Asoka's edicts in Kurnool district and the Buddhist relic inscriptions of the Krishna delta. The Satavahanas, whose dates are still debated, ruled the Krishna valley by the 2nd century CE, when Amaravati and other stupas flourished.

Ikshvakus, Vishnukundins & early kingdoms

c. 225–624 CE

The four centuries between the end of Satavahana rule on the Krishna (about 225 CE) and the Eastern Chalukya conquest of Vengi (about 615–630). The Ikshvakus of Vijayapuri, the Pallavas, Brihatphalayanas and Salankayanas, and the Vishnukundins are known almost only from Prakrit and Sanskrit inscriptions, whose dates are still debated.

Mauryas

c. 322 BCE – 184 BCE

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

Satavahanas

c. 200 BCE – 225 CE

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

Ikshvakus of Vijayapuri

c. 225–350 CE

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

Pallavas

c. 250–900 CE

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

Vakatakas

c. 275–530 CE

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

Salankayanas of Vengi

c. 300–470 CE

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

Eastern Gangas of Kalinga

c. 498–1434 CE

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

Vishnukundins

c. 500–630 CE

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

Chalukyas of Badami

c. 550–757 CE

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

Telugu Cholas of Renadu

c. 550–800 CE

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

Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi

c. 615–1077 CE

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

Banas

c. 700–921 CE

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

Chalukyas of Vemulavada

c. 750–973 CE

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

Rashtrakutas of Malkhed

c. 753–973 CE

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

Nolamba-Pallavas

c. 800–974 CE

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

Vaidumbas

c. 800–1102 CE

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

Chalukyas of Mudigonda

c. 890–1218 CE

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

Western Chalukyas of Kalyani

c. 973–1189 CE

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

Cholas of Tanjore

c. 985–1268 CE

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

Kandur Chodas

c. 1060–1282 CE

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

Haihayas of Kona and Palnadu

c. 1073–1364 CE

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

Velanati Chodas

c. 1076–1209 CE

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

Kotas of Dharanikota

c. 1100–1276 CE

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

Telugu Chodas of Pottapi and Nellore

c. 1120–1316 CE

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

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.

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.

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.

Simuka

c. 220 BCE – 197 BCE

Founder of the Satavahana dynasty, named on a label over a carving at Nanaghat in the western Ghats. The Puranas call him the first Andhra king. A tradition of the Telugu country, recorded by James Burgess, gave a legendary founder a first capital at Srikakulam on the Krishna. Depending on the scholar, his dates range from the late 3rd to the 1st century BCE.

Sri Satakarni

c. 179 BCE – 169 BCE

Third Satavahana king and husband of Queen Nayanika of the Nanaghat inscriptions. He was probably the Satakarni whom Kharavela of Kalinga defied in the Hathigumpha inscription. Nothing of his is known from the Telugu country, but Kharavela's campaign is said to have reached the Krishna.

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.

Siva Sri Satakarni

c. 170–177 CE

Satavahana king of the later 2nd century CE. He is known almost only from lead coins found in the Krishna and Godavari districts, among them examples from Gudivada. He was probably a successor, perhaps a brother, of Vasishthiputra Pulumavi.

Yajna Sri Satakarni

c. 184–213 CE

Late Satavahana king of the later 2nd century CE, the last whose inscriptions and coins are found in both the western Deccan and the Krishna–Godavari country. His Chinna inscription, from the coast south of the Krishna, is dated in his 27th year. His silver coins bear what E. J. Rapson in 1908 called the only known coin-portrait of a Satavahana king.

Chandra Sri Satakarni

c. 219–229 CE

Satavahana king, called Vasishthiputra Chandra Sati on his lead coins from the Krishna and Godavari districts. A rock inscription at Kodavali near Pithapuram calls him Chandasati. Scholars disagree whether he reigned soon after Pulumavi or near the end of the dynasty, and whether two kings of the name are involved.

Vasishthiputra Chamtamula

c. 225–255 CE

First known king of the Ikshvakus of Vijayapuri (Nagarjunakonda). His descendants' inscriptions remember him as a performer of the horse sacrifice and other Vedic rites, while the women of his family founded the Buddhist monuments of the Krishna valley. His reign ended before about 255; D. C. Sircar had dated it to about 223–240.

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.

Virapurushadatta

c. 255–275 CE

Ikshvaku king of Vijayapuri (3rd century CE). In his reign the women of the royal family rebuilt the Great Stupa at Nagarjunakonda, and founded shrines and monasteries for Buddhist monks, including monks from Sri Lanka. His records run to his 20th regnal year, and one is dated in a cyclic year equated with 273–74. D. C. Sircar dated his reign to about 255–275.

Vijaya-Skandavarman (Pallava)

c. 275–340 CE

Pallava king in whose reign the queen Charudevi, wife of the crown prince Vijaya-Buddhavarman, granted land to a temple of Narayana. Her Prakrit grant was found near Guntur and is now in the British Museum. It is the only record of his reign. Scholars disagree whether he was the same man as Sivaskandavarman of the Mayidavolu and Hirahadagalli plates.

Ehuvula Chamtamula

c. 280–335 CE

Third known Ikshvaku king of Vijayapuri (Nagarjunakonda), son of Virapurushadatta. His records run to his 24th regnal year. In his reign a prince and a noble built the earliest dated Shiva temples in the valley. Queens, bankers and lay Buddhists went on giving gifts to its monasteries. D. C. Sircar dated his reign to about 280–335.

Devavarman (Salankayana)

c. 320–345 CE

Salankayana king of Vengi. He is known from a Prakrit grant of his 13th year addressed to the villagers of Ellore, in which he calls himself a performer of the horse sacrifice and a devotee of Shiva. His place in the family is unknown. Scholars have made him a son of Hastivarman, an earlier king (perhaps Hastivarman's father), and a successor of Nandivarman I.

Vishnugopa of Kanchi

c. 325–350 CE

King of Kanchi named in the Allahabad pillar inscription of the Gupta emperor Samudragupta, among the southern kings whom he captured and released, about the middle of the 4th century. Most scholars take him for a Pallava. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil argued that the meeting took place near the Krishna, where Vishnugopa led an alliance of eastern kings, not at Kanchi.

Rudrapurushadatta

c. 335–346 CE

Fourth and last known Ikshvaku king of Vijayapuri (Nagarjunakonda), son of Ehuvula Chamtamula. He was identified in 1955–56 from a memorial pillar of his 11th regnal year. D. C. Sircar thought his reign ended before about 350, when the Pallavas took the Krishna–Guntur region.

Hastivarman (Salankayana)

c. 345–370 CE

Salankayana king of Vengi, the earliest king in the family list of his family's copper-plate grants, which praise him for victories in many battles. Since 1926 most scholars have identified him with the Hastivarman of Vengi whom the Gupta emperor Samudragupta claims to have captured and released in the mid-4th century. Older works took that king for a Pallava viceroy.

Nandivarman I (Salankayana)

c. 370–395 CE

Salankayana king of Vengi, son of Hastivarman and father of Chandavarman and Hastivarman II. A Prakrit grant of his 14th year, found at Kanukollu and published in 1960, is the only record of his own. Its editor dated it to the close of the 3rd century, but D. C. Sircar placed it about the middle of the 4th.

Chandavarman (Salankayana)

c. 395–420 CE

Salankayana king of Vengi, son of Nandivarman I and father of Nandivarman II. He is known only from his son's grants, which say that subordinate rulers bowed to his power. He has often been confused with Chandavarman, a 5th-century king of Kalinga who issued the Komarti plates.

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.

Kumaravishnu II (Pallava)

c. 425–450 CE

Pallava king of Kanchi known from the Chendalur plates. He issued them from Kanchipura in the second year of his reign, granting land in the village of Chendalura in Karmarashtra, in the present Prakasam district. Where he belongs in the Pallava line is disputed: before Simhavarman, according to Jouveau-Dubreuil, or between Simhavarman and Simhavishnu, according to Hultzsch.

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.

Vishnugopa (Pallava crown prince)

c. 475–500 CE

Pallava prince of the Nellore–Guntur line, son of Skandavarman II and father of Simhavarman. As crown prince (yuvamaharaja) he issued the Uruvupalli grant from Palakkada, dated in the 11th year of a king Simhavarman, giving land to a temple at Kandukura. Scholars disagree whether he ever reigned, and who the Simhavarman of his grant was.

Madhavavarman (Vishnukundin)

c. 535–585 CE

The most famous Vishnukundin king. His own and his descendants' grants credit him with eleven horse sacrifices and a thousand agnishtoma rites. He married into the Vakataka royal family. Whether he was also Madhavavarman Janashraya, the son of Govindavarman and donor of the first Ipur and the Polamuru plates, is disputed: D. C. Sircar and V. V. Mirashi thought so, while other scholars made Janashraya a later king, Madhavavarman III. His date is also disputed: Sircar placed him about 535–585, Mirashi about 510–560.

Dhananjaya (Telugu Chola)

c. 575 CE

Telugu Chola ruler of Renandu in the Kadapa country, whom his editors date to about 575. As Erikal-Muturaju Dhananjaya he is named in the Kalamalla pillar inscription, one of the earliest records written wholly in Telugu. As Dhananjayavarman, youngest son of Nandivarman, he heads the line of Punyakumara in the Malepadu plates.

Madhavavarman II (Vishnukundin)

c. 585–615 CE

Vishnukundin king, son of Devavarman and grandson of the great Madhavavarman. He is known from the second set of Ipur plates, issued from [Ama]rapura. The grant calls him lord of the Trikuta and Malaya mountains. Scholars have read this claim as an empty boast, as evidence of a western Vishnukundin realm, or as the name of a local hill. His place in the line and his date are disputed.

Mahendravikrama (Telugu Chola)

c. 600 CE

Telugu Chola king of Renandu, son of Dhananjaya and father of Punyakumara, the first of his line to take the title Chola-Maharaja. His name copies that of the Pallava king Mahendravarman I, and his editors placed him about 600. Short Telugu stone records of a 'Chola-Maharaja' at Uruturu and Indukuru are assigned to him.

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.

Indravarman (Vishnukundin)

c. 625–655 CE

Vishnukundin king, called Indrabhattarakavarman in his son's Chikkulla plates, who issued the Ramatirtham plates near Vizianagaram in his 27th year. His grants praise his victories with war elephants. Most scholars identify him with the Indrabhattaraka against whom a group of kings fought, according to the Godavari plates of Prithivimula. His date depends on the disputed Vishnukundin chronology: about 469–496, 535, 570–600 and 625–655 have all been proposed.

Punyakumara

c. 625 CE

Telugu Chola king of Renandu and Hiranyarashtra, the best-documented ruler of the family. He is known from two sets of Sanskrit copper plates (Malepadu, fifth year; Dommara-Nandyala, tenth year) and from Telugu stone records at Tippaluru, Ramesvaram and Veludurti. His titles imitate those of the Pallava Mahendravarman I. Editors have dated him about 625, about 740 and near the end of the 8th century.

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.

Vikramaditya I (Chalukya of Badami)

c. 655–680 CE

Chalukya king of Badami (about 655–680), a son of Pulakesin II. He restored the kingdom after the Pallavas took Badami, fought three Pallava kings and took Kanchi. His copper-plate grants come from the Telugu country: Amudalapadu and Gadwal in today's Telangana, the Kurnool district, Talamanchi near Nellore, and Hyderabad. His Amudalapadu plates of 660 record his initiation into the Shaiva faith. A queen of his installed a linga at Alampur.

Vikramendravarman II (Vishnukundin)

c. 655–670 CE

Vishnukundin king, eldest son of Indravarman, who issued the Chikkulla plates from Lendulura (Denduluru near Vengi) in his 10th year, giving a village on the Krishna to a Shiva temple. The plates say he took up the government as a child. Some scholars identify him with the Vikramahendra of the Polamuru plates, the grandfather of the last known Vishnukundin king; D. C. Sircar did not. Sircar dated him about 655–670, and the scheme printed by Sewell in 1932 about 496–521.

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.

Paramesvaravarman I

c. 670–690 CE

Pallava king of Kanchi in the later 7th century, son of Mahendravarman II and grandson of Narasimhavarman I. He fought the Chalukya Vikramaditya I, who took Kanchi in his reign and was later driven back. His Vunna Guravayapalem plates, issued from Kanchipura in his 19th year and dated by D. C. Sircar to December 687, grant a village in the Podili–Kandukur country of Nellore.

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.

Narasimhavarman II

c. 690–715 CE

Pallava king of Kanchi about 700, son of Paramesvaravarman I, also called Rajasimha, builder of the Kailasanatha temple at Kanchipuram. His Reyuru grant, kept in the archives of the Raja of Kalahasti, gives a village in Mel-Mundarashtra, which P. B. Desai placed in the Atmakur taluk of Nellore. Desai suggested that he or his father had won back part of the Nellore country from the Eastern Chalukyas.

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.

Vikramaditya II (Telugu Chola)

c. 700 CE

Telugu Chola king of Renandu, placed about 700 by his editors. He is known from stone records at Chilamakuru and Nallacheruvupalle, and from the Malepadu stone of his son Satyaditya. His queen Cholamahadevi ruled at Chilamakuru with their son Uttamaditya, who succeeded him. Whether 'Saktikumara' was his father or part of his own name is disputed.

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.

Nandivarman II Pallavamalla

c. 717–779 CE

Pallava king of Kanchi for more than sixty years in the 8th century. He came from a side branch of the family descended from Simhavishnu's brother Bhimavarman, and was chosen king as a boy after the death of Paramesvaravarman II. His general Udayachandra drove a Nishada chief out of the land of 'Vishnuraja', identified with the Eastern Chalukya Vishnuvardhana III. An inscription of his 15th year at Mallam in the Gudur taluk shows Pallava rule in southern Nellore.

Vijayaditya Chola (Telugu Chola)

c. 750 CE

Telugu Chola king of Renandu known from a single damaged stone at Chamaluru, dated in his 22nd year. He bore the supreme title Prithvivallabha, and a Bana king ruled Pambuliggi under him. His editors placed him about 750. They read the record as the family's recovery of Renandu from Bana chiefs who had served the Chalukyas of Badami.

Vinayaditya-Yuddhamalla I (Chalukya of Vemulavada)

c. 750–775 CE

Founder of the Chalukya family of Vemulavada in the 8th century. The family's records say that he ruled the Sapadalaksha country, bathed his elephants in tanks filled with oil at Podana (Bodhan) and took the fort of Chitrakuta. N. Venkataramanayya dated him to about 750–775, and thought he served the Rashtrakuta Dantidurga in his northern wars. His sons were Arikesari I, who conquered Vengi, and Biragriha, named in the Kuruvagatta inscription.

Dantidurga

c. 753–756 CE

Rashtrakuta king (about 753–756) who overthrew the Chalukyas of Badami and founded the Rashtrakuta supremacy of the Deccan. His Samangad grant of January 754 says that he won the sovereignty by conquering the Chalukya 'Vallabha'. An inscription at Ellora lists among the rulers he subdued those of Kalinga, Kosala and the Srisaila country, which J. F. Fleet took to be the Kurnool country.

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.

Govinda III (Rashtrakuta)

c. 793–814 CE

Rashtrakuta king (about 793–814), son of Dhruva, under whom the dynasty's power reached from the Vindhyas to the Tungabhadra. His Radhanpur plates of 808 say that the lord of Vengi, the Eastern Chalukya Vijayaditya II, came at his command and built an enclosure for him like a servant. An undated inscription at Kuruvagattu in the Mahbubnagar district names him as the friend of a Chalukya prince. A shrine of the Sun at Alampur was built for the prosperity of a king Prabhutavarsha who may be Govinda III.

Vijayaditya II Narendra-mrigaraja

c. 799–843 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (799–843 in Fleet's chronology), the first of the dynasty to use the full imperial titles. His family's records say he fought 108 battles against the Gangas and the Rashtrakutas over twelve years and founded 108 temples of Shiva. Rashtrakuta records say that Govinda III made the king of Vengi build the walls of his city. The later grants give his reign as 40, 41, 44 or 48 years.

Amoghavarsha I

c. 814–878 CE

Rashtrakuta king (814–about 878), son of Govinda III, who reigned for more than sixty years and made Manyakheta (Malkhed) the capital of the dynasty. His records claim the homage of the king of Vengi and a victory over the Eastern Chalukyas at Vingavalli. Kannada inscriptions of his reign have been found in the Medak and Warangal districts of Telangana.

Gunaga Vijayaditya III

c. 844–888 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (c. 844–888). His records claim victories over the Gangas, the Nolamba king Mangi, a chief Sankila of Dahala and the Rashtrakuta Krishna, and the burning of Kiranapura and Chakrakuta. Historians have seen him both as the man who sacked the Rashtrakuta capital and as a Rashtrakuta vassal. His general Pandaranga is praised in one of the earliest Telugu verse inscriptions.

Pandaranga

c. 844–888 CE

Army commander of the Eastern Chalukya king Gunaga Vijayaditya III in the second half of the 9th century, praised in the Telugu verse inscription at Addanki. Later grants credit him with burning Kiranapura, the home of the Rashtrakuta Krishna II and his ally Sankila. He was the executor of his king's grants, and his descendants held the office of Katakaraja under the later kings.

Krishna II (Rashtrakuta)

c. 878–914 CE

Rashtrakuta king (about 878–914), son of Amoghavarsha I. The Eastern Chalukya Gunaga Vijayaditya III claimed to have frightened him and burnt his city, and a Rashtrakuta grant admits that his enemies once abandoned his capital. Later Eastern Chalukya records in turn admit that his army overran Vengi until Chalukya-Bhima I won it back. A Kannada record of 907 in his reign has been found at Velmajala in Telangana.

Mahendra I (Nolamba)

c. 878–904 CE

The most powerful king of the Nolamba-Pallavas, son of Polalchora Nolambadhiraja and the Ganga princess Jayabbe. His records run from Saka 800 (878–79), and a pillar at Kambaduru in Anantapur is dated in his reign in Saka 805 (883). He invaded Pulinadu, the country of the Banas round Punganur, and called himself 'destroyer of the Mahabali race'. After a quarrel with his Ganga overlords he was defeated by Butuga and killed by the Ganga prince Ereyappa, before about 904.

Ganda-Trinetra (Vaidumba)

c. 885 CE

Vaidumba Maharaja of the Renandu country in the late 9th century, known from hero-stones near Madanapalle in early Telugu and Kannada. Three of them were edited by R. S. Panchamukhi in 1938. They place him in the wars against the Nolamba king Mahendra and the Gangas, culminating in the battle at Soremati, where he fought on the side of the Bana king Vijayaditya II. The battle has been dated about 877–78, about 885 and 900.

Chalukya-Bhima I

c. 888–918 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (888–918 in Fleet's and Sewell's reckoning), nephew and successor of Gunaga Vijayaditya III. His records say he won back the Vengi country after the Rashtrakuta king Krishna II had overrun it. A young son of his fell in battle against the Rashtrakuta army. He built the Siva temple of Chalukya-Bhimesvara, which gave its name to Bhimavaram near Kakinada (then Cocanada).

Vijayaditya II Prabhumeru (Bana)

c. 898–909 CE

Bana king of the country west of the Andhra road (the Chittoor country), also called Prabhumeru, Vira-Chulamani and Mahavali-Vanaraya. He was the son of Vikramaditya Jayameru (Banavidyadhara) and the father of Vikramaditya II, donor of the Gudimallam plates. His stone records at Gudimallam and in the Kolar country are dated Saka 820, 827 and 831 (898, 905 and 909), with no overlord named. He drove back the Nolamba invasion of Pulinadu and fought, with the Vaidumbas, at Soremati.

Narasimha II (Chalukya of Vemulavada)

c. 915–930 CE

Chalukya king of Vemulavada, a feudatory of the Rashtrakutas, who ruled from about 915 to 930. Pampa and the Vemulavada inscription of his son Arikesari II credit him with victories over the Latas, the 'Seven Malavas' and the Gurjara-Pratihara king Mahipala, and with a pillar of victory at Kalapriya. N. Venkataramanayya held that he won them as the commander of the Rashtrakuta Indra III's northern campaign of about 916.

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.

Yuddhamalla II

c. 927–934 CE

Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi (about 927–934) of the junior line descended from Yuddhamalla I. He seized the throne during the civil war that followed the death of Amma I in 925, and held it for seven years until Chalukya-Bhima II drove him out. A Telugu verse inscription on a pillar at Vijayawada (then Bezwada), recording a temple of Kumarasvamin and a monastery for Saiva ascetics, is attributed to him or to his grandfather. His sons Badapa and Tala II later tried to win back the throne with Rashtrakuta help.

Arikesari II (Chalukya of Vemulavada)

c. 930–955 CE

Chalukya king of Vemulavada in today's Karimnagar district, a feudatory of the Rashtrakutas, who ruled from about 930 to about 955. He was the patron of the Kannada poet Pampa, who made him the hero of his Vikramarjunavijaya (941). His pillar inscription at Vemulavada gives the family line and records a gift to a Sun temple in his capital, Lembulavataka. He sheltered a Chalukya prince named Bijja from the Rashtrakuta king Govinda IV, and helped bring Govinda's uncle Baddega (Amoghavarsha III) to the throne.

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.

Krishna III (Rashtrakuta)

c. 939–966 CE

Rashtrakuta king (about 939–966), the most powerful of the line, who took Kanchi and Tanjore from the Cholas. In the Telugu country he held most of the Cuddapah country through the Vaidumba chiefs, and the Nolamba chiefs of Anantapur served under him. The Eastern Chalukya pretender Badapa sought his help to drive Amma II out of Vengi. Inscriptions of his reign or of his feudatories have been found at Chennur, Mallikarjunapalli, Minambaram and Inavolu in Telangana.

Iriva-Nolamba (Dilipa)

c. 943–966 CE

Nolamba-Pallava king, younger son of Ayyapa and grandson of Mahendra I, who succeeded his brother Anniga after the Rashtrakuta Krishna III defeated Anniga in 940. B. Lewis Rice gives him dates from 943 to 966. The genealogy on the Hemavati pillar ends with him, in a record of Saka 864 (942–43), and a record of his reign stands below the tank at Hindupur. The Vaidumbas served him, and a Bana chief ruled a district under him in 961. His grandson Polalchora set up a pillar at Kambaduru in 965.

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.

Taila II

c. 973–997 CE

Founder of the Western Chalukya dynasty of Kalyani, who overthrew the last Rashtrakuta king, Kakka II, in 973 and reigned until 997. An inscription of his reign dated April 973 has been found at Korapolu in the Medak district, and P. V. Parabrahma Sastry dated his earliest record near Anumakonda to 995. In Parabrahma Sastry's reading, the Kakatiya chief Gunda IV was killed by a chief backed by Taila, and the family recovered only under Gunda's son Beta I.

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.

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.

Jayasimha II (Western Chalukya)

c. 1015–1042 CE

Western Chalukya king of Kalyani, called Jagadekamalla, who reigned from about 1015 to 1042 and fought the Chola king Rajendra I. His records name Kollipake, now identified with Kolanupaka in the Nalgonda district, as one of his minor capitals. An inscription of his reign at Kolanupaka is dated January 1033.

Rajadhiraja I (Chola)

1018–1052 CE

Chola king, eldest son of Rajendra I and his co-regent from 1018, who fought the Western Chalukya Somesvara I. His Manimangalam inscription claims that he burnt the centre of Kollippakkai (Kolanupaka), a Western Chalukya city on the edge of Telangana, and counts the Andhra king among those who paid him tribute. An inscription of his 28th year is at Kalahasti. He fell in battle against Somesvara at Koppam in 1052.

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.

Vajrahasta III (Eastern Ganga)

c. 1038–1070 CE

Eastern Ganga king of Kalinga, crowned on 3 May 1038. His Nadagam plates of 1058 give the earliest exactly dated event in the history of the later Gangas, and a family tree of his predecessors. He styled himself lord of the Three Kalingas and issued his grants from Kalinganagara. He was the grandfather of Anantavarman Chodaganga. Historians number him Vajrahasta III or Vajrahasta V.

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.

Somesvara I

c. 1042–1068 CE

Western Chalukya king, called Trailokyamalla and Ahavamalla, who reigned from about 1042 to 1068 and made Kalyana (Kalyani) his capital. Records of his reign are found at Alampur, Bodhan and Kolanupaka in Telangana, and the early Kakatiya chiefs Beta I and Prola I served him. His wars with the Cholas reached the Vengi country. Chola inscriptions claim that his army sent to Vengi was destroyed and his sons beaten at Kudalasangamam. He drowned himself in the Tungabhadra in 1068.

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.

Virarajendra (Chola)

c. 1063–1070 CE

Chola king from 1062–63 to 1070, probably a younger son of Rajendra I, whose inscriptions give the fullest Chola account of the struggle with the Western Chalukyas of Kalyani for Vengi. He defeated armies sent into Vengi, and in his fifth year his army beat the enemy at Bezwada on the Krishna, marched to the Godavari and through Kalinga, and gave Vengi to a Vijayaditya, whom Hultzsch identified with the Eastern Chalukya Vijayaditya VII. A record of his seventh year, Saka 991, is in the Chittoor district.

Rajaraja I (Eastern Ganga)

c. 1070–1078 CE

Eastern Ganga king of Kalinga, also called Devendravarman. He reigned for eight years between his father Vajrahasta III and his son Anantavarman Chodaganga (1070–1078 in Sewell's chronology, 1068–1076 in Ramamurti's). His wife Rajasundari was probably a daughter of the Chola-Chalukya emperor Kulottunga I. His general Vanapati claimed victories over the Cholas and the kings of Vengi and Orissa. The grants of his son say that he sheltered the Eastern Chalukya Vijayaditya VII against the Cholas.

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.

Karunakara Tondaiman

c. 1076–1112 CE

General and minister of the Chola king Kulottunga I, the hero of the Tamil poem Kalingattupparani, which describes how he marched an army north from Kanchi across the Penna, the Krishna and the Godavari to defeat the king of northern Kalinga. A Sanskrit inscription of 1103 at Draksharama, which K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyer identified as his, records the burning of Kalinga, a victory pillar on the borders of Orissa and his gifts in the Vengi country. The date of the war is disputed: about 1076–77, 1084–90, before 1095–96, or about 1111–12.

Vikramaditya VI

c. 1076–1126 CE

Western Chalukya king of Kalyani, called Tribhuvanamalla. He deposed his brother Somesvara II in 1076 and reigned for fifty years, to 1126. He replaced the Saka era with his own Chalukya-Vikrama era, in which most Telangana records of the time are dated. As a prince he fought the Cholas and their Eastern Chalukya allies for Vengi. Late in his reign, after the Chola viceroy left in 1118, he was recognised as king in Vengi and the coastal Telugu country. His feudatories in Telangana included the Kakatiyas Beta II and Prola II and the Choda chiefs of Kandur.

Anantavarman Chodaganga

c. 1078–1146 CE

Eastern Ganga king of Kalinga, crowned in 1078 and still reigning in his 72nd regnal year (1146–47). He was a son of the Ganga king Rajaraja and of Rajasundari, a daughter of Kulottunga I, so he was a grandson of the Chola-Chalukya emperor whose armies invaded Kalinga in his reign. Dozens of his Telugu and Sanskrit inscriptions survive at Mukhalingam, Srikurmam, Simhachalam, Draksharama and other places in the north of the Telugu country. His grants trace the Ganga family back to Brahma.

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.

Bhima Choda III of Kandur

c. 1105–1157 CE

Kandur Choda chief, second son of Tondaya II and Mailamba, for whose welfare his mother founded an agrahara at Panugallu in 1124. The Kakatiya inscription of 1163 accuses a Bhima of killing his brother Gokarna and seizing power after the death of a king Tailapa, and tells how Rudradeva burned his city and drove him into the forest. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry dated his records from 1105 to about 1157.

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.

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.

Somesvara III

c. 1126–1138 CE

Western Chalukya king, called Bhulokamalla, who reigned from 1126 to 1138. He is credited with the encyclopaedic Sanskrit work Manasollasa. As Prince Somesvara he governed the Kollipake province from Kolanupaka in Telangana, where a pillar of 1125 celebrates his victory over the lord of Trikalinga. An inscription at Patancheru records grants made on the day of his coronation, 20 February 1127.

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.

Taila III

c. 1150–1162 CE

Western Chalukya king, called Trailokyamalla, who reigned from 1150. His Kalachuri general Bijjala took over the kingdom between 1156 and 1162. He was dead by January 1163, when the Kakatiya Rudradeva's inscription at Anumakonda mentions his death. J. F. Fleet identified him with the 'Tailapadeva' whom Rudradeva's father Prola II captured and released. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry argued that Prola's captive was the prince Kumara Tailapa instead.

Mallideva of Kona

c. 1155–1195 CE

Haihaya chief of Konamandala, the Godavari delta. He ruled jointly with Manma-Satya II, a great-grandson of his uncle Satya I. In 1195 the two gave the village of Odiyuru to the Kunti-Madhava temple at Pithapuram. Their inscription traces the family from the legendary Kartavirya and praises the Velanati queen Jayamamba. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry held that Mallideva and a Satya of the Kona family took part in the battle in which the Kakatiya Prola II was killed.

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.

Ballala II (Hoysala)

1173–1220 CE

Hoysala king, crowned at Dorasamudra on 22 July 1173, who defeated the Seuna army at Soratur, took the Pandya fortress of Uchchangi and pushed his frontier to the Bhima river. He took Nolambavadi: his records in the Anantapur country are at Parigi (Saka 1100, 1178) and Hemavati (1205–06), and an inscription at Harihar claims that he took Gooty. B. Lewis Rice dates his reign 1173–1220.

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.

Tammusiddhi

c. 1205–1208 CE

Telugu Choda king of the Pottapi and Nellore family, and a vassal of the Chola king Kulottunga III. He was anointed at Nellore in 1205–06 and made grants at Kanchipuram, Tiruvalangadu, Tiruppasur, Tiruvorriyur, Nellore and Kavali. His inscriptions give the fullest early family tree of the family, but they disagree about who his brother or uncle Nallasiddhi was.

Tikka I (Telugu Choda of Nellore)

c. 1209–1248 CE

Telugu Choda king of Nellore, also called Tirukalatti and Ganda-Gopala, who ruled from about 1209 to 1248 or 1250. He was a loyal vassal of the Chola Rajaraja III, fought the Hoysalas and held Kanchi. In one modern account he owed his throne at Nellore to the Kakatiya Ganapatideva. He was the father of Manumasiddhi II.

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.

Manumasiddhi II

c. 1248 CE

Telugu Choda king of Nellore from about 1248 or 1250, son of Tikka I and patron of the poet Tikkana Somayaji. He was driven out of Nellore early in his reign. The Kakatiya king Ganapatideva restored him after Tikkana went to the Kakatiya court as his envoy, and he later fought for Ganapati against Kalinga on the Godavari. Whether he was the same king as Vijaya-Gandagopala of Kanchi is disputed.

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.

Narasimha I (Eastern Ganga)

c. 1250–1268 CE

Eastern Ganga king of Kalinga and Orissa in the mid-13th century, son of Anangabhima. The Vizagapatam gazetteer credits him with building the central shrine, the halls and the enclosing verandah of the Simhachalam temple in black stone in 1267–68. His feudatories and ministers left records at Srikurmam. The Orissa temple chronicle remembers him as Languliya Narsinh, builder of the Sun temple at Konarak. His dates differ widely between the sources.

Jatavarman Sundara Pandya I

c. 1251–1268 CE

Pandya king of Madurai who came to the throne in 1251 and led the second Pandya empire to its height. His records claim the defeat of the Hoysala Somesvara, the capture of Kopperunjinga's fortress, the occupation of Kanchi after killing Gandagopala, and a victory over the Telugus and their allies at Mudugur, from which he drove them to the Krishna. He was anointed as conqueror at Nellore. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry dates the battle at Muttukuru to 1263 and adds that he struck coins with the Kakatiya boar. Robert Sewell doubted the northern march.

Ballala III (Hoysala)

1292–1342 CE

The last great Hoysala king, crowned on 31 January 1292, who united the two halves of the kingdom. Malik Kafur took his capital Dorasamudra in 1311; the city was rebuilt by 1316 and destroyed again by a Tughluq army, after which he lived at Tiruvannamalai. His inscriptions in the Anantapur district run from 1317 to 1340, and in 1328 his minister ruled at Penukonda. A Kakatiya general defeated him at Kanchi. He was killed fighting the Sultan of Madurai on 8 September 1342.

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.

Singama Nayaka (Recherla)

c. 1336–1361 CE

Recherla chief of the mid-fourteenth century, son of Dacaya and father of Anapota and Mada, the founders of the Velama kingdoms of Rachakonda and Devarakonda. He fought the Musunuri chief Kapaya Nayaka and settled Brahmins on the Krishna. The family chronicle says he was stabbed to death while besieging the fort of Jallipalli, about 1361.

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.

Mada Nayaka (Recherla)

c. 1361–1384 CE

Recherla Velama chief (r. c. 1361–1384), younger son of Singama Nayaka and brother of Anapota. He ruled from Devarakonda and is counted as the founder of the Devarakonda branch. His inscription of 1377 records a pavilion he built at Umamahesvaram, the northern gateway of Srisailam. His son Venna governed Kandikonda.

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.

Peda Vedagiri (Recherla)

c. 1384–1410 CE

Recherla Velama chief of Devarakonda (r. c. 1384–1410), son of Mada Nayaka. An inscription of 1399 calls him ruler of the land between Srisailam and the Vindhyas. The family chronicle credits him with a victory near Warangal in the war against Kapaya Nayaka.

Singabhupala (Recherla)

c. 1384–1399 CE

Recherla Velama king of Rachakonda (late 14th century), son of Anapota Nayaka. He wrote the Rasarnavasudhakara, a Sanskrit book on drama whose opening verses are the fullest early account of his family. Later tradition calls him, or a namesake of the next century, Sarvajna ('the all-knowing') Singa, patron of Srinatha and Potana. Who was who is disputed.

Lingama Nayaka (Recherla)

c. 1427–1475 CE

Recherla Velama chief of Devarakonda in the fifteenth century, and a great-great-grandson of Mada Nayaka according to an inscription of 1427. He is known from two tank inscriptions of 1427 and from a long list of victories in the family chronicle. The chronicle makes him a rival of the Reddi kings and a contemporary of the Vijayanagara king Praudha Devaraya.

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.

Hamvira (Hambira)

c. 1459–1478 CE

Son of the Gajapati king Kapilendra and the leading general of his conquests in the Telugu and Tamil countries. He captured the fort of Warangal on 2 February 1460 and made the Chiruvroli grant on the Krishna in 1461. In 1464 his son Dakshina-Kapilesvara governed Kondavidu and the forts of the south. Ferishta writes of an 'Ambur Ray' who took the Orissan throne with Bahmani help after Kapilendra's death. This man has been identified with Hamvira, but the succession is disputed.

Purushottama (Gajapati)

c. 1470–1497 CE

Gajapati king of Orissa from 1469–70 to 1496–97, son of Kapilendra. Early in his reign the Bahmanis took Rajahmundry and Kondapalli or Kondavidu, after a disputed succession in which he may have bought their help. His attempt to recover the Godavari country in the 1470s ended with Muhammad Shah III's invasion of Orissa. But by 1489 his grants and inscriptions reach the Krishna and the Ongole country again. Orissan tradition credits him with an expedition to Kanchi and a romantic marriage.

Prataparudra (Gajapati)

c. 1497–1540 CE

Gajapati king of Orissa from 1496–97 to about 1540, son of Purushottama, and the last great king of the Suryavamsi line. At his accession his empire reached from Bengal to the Guntur and Nellore country. In 1512–19 the Vijayanagara king Krishnadeva Raya took Udayagiri, Kondavidu and Kondapalli, captured his son Virabhadra, marched to Simhachalam and married his daughter. The Qutb Shahi sultan of Golconda then took the Godavari–Krishna country. The legal digest Sarasvativilasa bears his name. He was a disciple of Chaitanya.

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.

Bhatideva

Ikshvaku queen, wife of King Virapurushadatta and mother of King Ehuvula Chamtamula. In the 2nd year of her son's reign she founded a monastery at Nagarjunakonda for Buddhist teachers of the Bahusutiya school.

Chamtisiri

Ikshvaku princess, sister of King Chamtamula and aunt and later mother-in-law of King Virapurushadatta. She was the chief donor of the Buddhist monuments of Vijayapuri (Nagarjunakonda). She gave the pillars of the Great Stupa, an apsidal shrine and a pillared hall beside it, all to the Aparamahavinaseliya school, in the 3rd century CE.

Gobhada

King known only from copper coins found at Kotilingala on the Godavari, inscribed 'Rajno Gobhadasa'. Rachna Lodaya counts him as the first local king of the Deccan to put his name on coins. The excavators dated his coins to the first half of the 2nd century BCE and K. D. Bajpai to about 125–100 BCE. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry took him for the Sunga king Bhagabhadra, an identification Lodaya rejects.

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.

Mailamba

Kakatiya princess, daughter of Mahadeva and sister of Ganapatideva, married to the Natavadi chief Rudra. She built the tank at Bayyaram, a village named after her mother Bayyamamba. Its inscription, found in 1966, is the main source for the early genealogy of the Kakatiyas.

Samagopa

King known only from his coins, found at Kotilingala, Peddabankur and Dhulikatta in the old Karimnagar district and at Chandrapur in Maharashtra. He issued more coins than any other Kotilingala king. Rachna Lodaya takes him for the last local king before the Satavahanas, ousted by Simuka about 52 BCE; P. V. Parabrahma Sastry took him for a Sunga king.

Simhavarman (Pallava, Manchikallu inscription)

Pallava king of the Bharadvaja gotra, known only from a broken Prakrit pillar inscription found at Manchikallu in the Palnad taluk. D. C. Sircar took it for the earliest Pallava record. He suggested that this Simhavarman brought the Krishna–Guntur country under the Pallavas, pushing out the Ikshvakus, and was perhaps the father of Sivaskandavarman.

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.

Addanki

Town on the Gundlakamma river, formerly in Ongole taluk. A stone here carries the 9th-century Telugu verse inscription of Pandaranga. Later records name it as the centre of the 'Addanki country'.

Alamanda

Village in the old Sringavarapukota taluk of the Vizagapatam district, now in the Vizianagaram district. Copper plates of the Ganga king Anantavarman, son of Rajendravarman, were found underground here in the early 1890s. They are dated in the 304th year of the Gangeya race.

Alampur

Town on the west bank of the Tungabhadra near its meeting with the Krishna, now in Telangana. It was formerly the head of a taluk of the Raichur and then the Mahbubnagar district of Hyderabad State. Its fort holds the Nava Brahma temples, whose inscriptions name kings and queens of the Chalukyas of Badami. Copper-plate grants of Vikramaditya I and Vinayaditya were found in the taluk. Inscriptions call the place Hatampura, and its god Brahmesvara the guardian of the western gate of Srisailam.

Arumbaka

Village in the former Repalle taluk of Guntur district. The Eastern Chalukya prince Badapa gave it to the archer Gandanarayana in his Arumbaka plates. Its neighbours named in the grant were found round it within four miles. Among them are Sripundi (Sripudi), the village of Tala II's grant, and Kavuru.

Bhairavakonda

Hill site in the old Udayagiri taluk of the Nellore district, near the Cuddapah border. It has a group of early rock-cut cave temples reported by A. H. Longhurst in 1921. R. Gopalan described them as of the Pallava age and very like the caves of Mahendravarman I.

Bhattiprolu

Village in the Krishna delta. In 1892 its great brick stupa yielded three relic caskets inscribed in an early and unusual variety of Brahmi, dated to about 200 BCE.

Bodhan

Town in the Nizamabad district of Telangana, 16 miles west of Nizamabad, the Bodana or Bhaudhanya-nagara of the inscriptions. A Kannada inscription of 1056, in the reign of the Chalukya king Somesvara I, records the renovation of its temple of Indranarayana. It says that the Rashtrakuta king Indravallabha had built that temple. Inscriptions in its ruined fort wall show that it was a Jain centre in the 11th and 12th centuries.

Chamaluru

Village in the former Jammalamadugu taluk of Kadapa district. A broken stone here records a grant in the 22nd year of the Telugu Chola king Prithivivallabha Vijayaditya, with a Bana king serving under him. Its lost lines survive in an eye-copy (a copy drawn by eye) made by Colin Mackenzie's assistants.

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.

Chandupatla

Village near Nalgonda. Its small Telugu inscription of November 1289 records that the Kakatiya queen Rudramadevi and her general Mallikarjuna-nayaka had died.

Chebrolu

Old town on a sandstone ridge nine miles south-east of Guntur, called Tamrapuri or the 'city of Shanmukha' in its inscriptions, after its temple of Kumarasvamin. Its records run from 1006. They include gifts of the Velanadu chiefs, and a long inscription of 1213 by Jaya, the Kakatiya king Ganapati's general, who received the town and rebuilt its temples and walls. M. Rama Rao attributed its Bhimesvara temple to the Eastern Chalukya king Chalukya-Bhima I.

Chellur

Village near Ramachandrapuram in the Godavari delta, the Chelluru agrahara (village granted to Brahmins) of the Eastern Chalukya records. Two copper-plate grants in Sir Walter Elliot's collection were obtained from its karnam (village accountant). One is the plates of the viceroy Vira-Choda, which record a Vishnu temple and a pond built there by his general Medamarya. The other is a grant of Kulottunga-Choda II of Saka 1056.

Chendalur

Village formerly in the Ongole taluk. It is the Chendalura of a Pallava copper-plate grant of Kumaravishnu II and the Chendapura of an Eastern Chalukya grant of 673. Both sets of plates were dug up there from a pot of paddy husk while a house was being built.

Chevuru

Village in the old Kaikalur taluk of Kistna (Krishna) district, near Vadali and Singarayapalem, west of the Kolleru lake. A copper-plate grant of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma I was dug up here about 1928, and B. Ch. Chhabra published it. The grant concerns the nearby village of Unikili.

Chikkulla

Agrahara (village granted to Brahmins) in the former Tuni division of Godavari district, later East Godavari. A copper-plate grant of the Vishnukundin king Vikramendravarman II was dug up from a tank here in the 1880s.

Chippili

Village in the Madanapalle country of the former Chittoor district. It has been identified with Chirpali, the capital of Renandu named in the Tippaluru inscription of the Telugu Chola Punyakumara. A Kannada memorial stone there names a Punyakomaran ruling Chirpuli.

Chipurupalle (Cheepurupalli)

Small town in the north of the old Vizagapatam district, once the headquarters of a taluk, with the remains of an old fort. Three sets of copper plates were found here in 1867. Among them is the grant of the Eastern Chalukya founder Vishnuvardhana I, dated 7 July 632. J. F. Fleet took Cherupura, the town where that grant was issued, to be an older form of its name.

Darsi

Town formerly in the Podili division of the Nellore district, now in Prakasam, where the first plate of a lost Pallava grant issued from Dasanapura was found in a tobacco field. V. Venkayya suggested that Dasanapura, one of the camps of the Pallava kings of the Nellore–Guntur country, was the old name of Darsi itself.

Dirghasi

Village near Kalingapatnam in the Srikakulam district, with a rocky hill called Durga-metta and the ruins of a temple of Durga. An inscription there of Saka 997 (1075–76), in Sanskrit and Telugu verse, was left by Vanapati, a general of the Ganga king Rajaraja I.

Dommara-Nandyala

Village in the former Jammalamadugu taluk of Kadapa district. Here a ploughman found the copper plates of the Telugu Chola king Punyakumara's tenth year in a sealed pot. The plates were edited in 1956.

Draksharama

Temple town in the Godavari delta, four miles south of Ramachandrapuram. It is famous as the 'Southern Benares' for its temple of Bhimesvara, whose walls carry hundreds of inscriptions from the 11th century onwards. Tradition derives its name from Daksharama, the garden of Daksha. It counts the temple's linga among the five Pancharama shrines.

Ederu (Edara)

Village near Agiripalle in the former Nuzvid zamindari of Kistna district, about 15 miles north-east of Vijayawada. Two Eastern Chalukya copper-plate grants were found there about 1871–73, those of Vijayaditya II and Amma I, and the zamindar of Nuzvid gave both to the Madras Museum.

Erragudi

Village in Pattikonda taluk, Kurnool district, near Gooty. Asoka's fourteen Rock Edicts and Minor Rock Edicts I–II are carved on boulders of the Yenakonda hill nearby.

Erragudipadu

Village in the former Kamalapuram taluk of Kadapa district. A stone beside its Chennakesava temple carries an inscription of an Erikal-Mutturaju of the Telugu Cholas of Renandu. Its editors dated it to the late 6th century, and it is among the earliest records written in Telugu.

Gadwal

Town in Telangana. In 1909 it was the seat of the Gadwal samasthan (tributary estate) of the Raichur district of Hyderabad State. The Gadval plates of the Chalukya king Vikramaditya I, dated 674, were kept in a house there and were said to have been found in its fields.

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.

Gangapuram

Village in the Mahbubnagar district of Telangana with eleven Kannada inscriptions of the Western Chalukya period. The dated ones run from 1091 to 1148, and they record gifts to its temples by royal officers and by merchant guilds. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry took it to be the Gangapura from which the prince Kumara Tailapa claimed to reign in 1137.

Gudimallam

Village near Renigunta in the Kalahasti country of the old Chittoor district, called Tiruvippirambedu (Sanskrit Viprapitha) in its inscriptions. Its Parasuramesvara temple holds the earliest records of the Bana chiefs, dated under the Pallava and Ganga-Pallava kings and in Saka 820 and 827 (898 and 905), and a copper-plate grant of the Bana king Vikramaditya II was found there. Later Tamil inscriptions of the Chola kings include a record of Vikrama-Chola's ninth year on the building of the temple.

Gudivada (Sarvasiddhi)

Village in the old Sarvasiddhi taluk of Visakhapatnam district, near Yellamanchili. A landholding family here kept three copper-plate grants of the Eastern Chalukya king Jayasimha I. Their editor identified the village with the Kulivataka or Kudivada of the grants, in the Plakki district. It is not to be confused with Gudivada in Krishna district.

Guraja

Village in the old Gudivada taluk of Kistna (Krishna) district. It is the findspot of a copper-plate grant of 1346. In it the Musunuri chief Kapaya Nayaka gave the village of Prolavaram for the merit of his predecessor Prolaya Nayaka.

Gurazala

Town in the Palnadu, west of Dachepalle. An inscription of 1129 calls it Madhavipattana; in it Beta Birudankarudra, a Haihaya feudatory (subordinate chief) of the Western Chalukyas, gave land to a temple there. In the ballad of the Palnadu heroes it is the capital of King Alugu Bhupati and of Nayakuralu, from which Brahma Nayudu broke away.

Hemavati

Village in the Madakasira taluk of Anantapur, eight miles south of Amarapuram, identified with Henjeru or Penjeru, a chief town (in H. Krishna Sastri's words 'the capital') of the Nolamba-Pallavas. A pillar there gives the family tree of the Nolamba kings, and two Tamil records of the Chola period and a grant of the Hoysala Vira-Ballala II of 1205–06 are among its later inscriptions. Its temples, with pillars of polished black stone, include the Doddesvara (or Nonesvara), the Mallesvara, the Virupakshesvara and the Siddhesvara.

Ipur

Village in the former Tenali taluk of Guntur district. Two sets of Vishnukundin copper plates, kept as heirlooms in a Brahmin household, were secured here in 1919–20. One is a grant of Govindavarman's son Madhavavarman, the other of Madhavavarman II. With them were two early Eastern Chalukya grants.

Jirjingi

Village near Tekkali in the Srikakulam district. Copper plates of the Ganga king Indravarman, lord of Trikalinga, dated in the year 39, were found here during the excavation of an old temple. The village is itself the Jijjika granted in the plates.

Kalamalla

Village in the former Kamalapuram taluk of Kadapa district. A broken pillar in its Chennakesava temple carries a late-6th-century inscription of the Telugu Chola Dhananjaya. It is one of the earliest records written entirely in Telugu.

Kalidindi

Village on the eastern edge of the Kolleru lake, in the old Kaikalur taluk of Krishna district. A copper-plate grant of the Eastern Chalukya king Rajaraja I was dug up here in 1938. It says that the king built three Shiva temples at Kalidindi in memory of Chola generals killed in battle. He gave the temples the village, renamed Madhurantakanallur. In the 18th and 19th centuries Kalidindi was a pargana (revenue division) of the Nuzvid zamindari (estate).

Kandikonda

Village with a hill fort near Mahabubabad, the Skandadri of the inscriptions. Venna, son of the Recherla chief Mada Nayaka, ruled here in the 1370s and built temples of Janardana and of Skandadrinatha.

Kandukur

Town formerly in the Nellore district, now in Prakasam. C. R. Krishnamacharlu took it to be the Kandukura of the Pallava Uruvupalli grant. The grant gave land to a temple of Vishnuhara there, which he thought was one of the early temples of Kandukur. He also thought the southern part of the Kandukur taluk lay in the ancient Mundarashtra.

Kanukollu

Village in the Krishna delta, formerly in the Gudivada taluk of Krishna district. Two copper-plate grants of the Salankayana kings Nandivarman I and Skandavarman were dug up here on the old village site, outside the ramparts of a ruined mud fort.

Karempudi

Town on the Nagileru river in the Palnadu, west of Guntur. It is remembered as the battlefield of the Palnadu heroes and the seat of their cult. Its temple of the heroes, described by Robert Sewell in 1879, has inscriptions of 1324 and 1333. A minister of the Velanati chief Gonka II built a temple of Suresvara there in 1154.

Kavali

Town in the north of Nellore district. A stone by its tank records the agrahara (village granted to Brahmins) Sripura, founded in 1207–08 by the Telugu Choda king Tammusiddhi. A record of 1228–29 near by is dated in the reign of Gandagopala Tirukaladeva Choda. Robert Sewell's table of the family gives these names to Tikka I.

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.

Konidena

Village south of the Krishna, in the former Guntur country. In the first half of the 12th century it was the seat of a branch of the Telugu Chodas. Its chiefs, Kama-Choda, Tribhuvanamalla Pottapi-Choda and Nanni-Choda, ruled under the Chola emperors, and one of them founded the Ballesvara temple there.

Kopparam

Village in the old Narasaraopet taluk of the Guntur district, near which the copper-plate grant of the 21st year of the Chalukya king Pulakesin II (probably 631) was found. The grant gives land in Karmarashtra and shows the Chalukyas of Badami granting land in the Guntur country at that time.

Kotilingala

Village on the south bank of the Godavari in the old Karimnagar district, at the mouth of the Peddavagu stream. Its large early mound, ringed by a mud fort, has given what its excavation report calls the earliest inscribed coins of the Deccan. They name local kings, Gobhada, Kamvaya, Narana and Samagopa, and the only known coins of Simuka, first king of the Satavahanas. Scholars disagree on whether these kings ruled before the Satavahanas, under them or beside them.

Kukunoor

Village on the Godavari near Bhadrachalam, in the old Khammam district. It was transferred to Andhra Pradesh in 2014 and is now in the Eluru district. It is the findspot of the Kukkunur copper plates of Kusumaditya of the Mudigonda Chalukyas, and their editor thought it was the village of Krichchaka granted in them.

Kuravi (Koravi)

Village in the Mahabubabad country of Telangana, the Koravi of medieval inscriptions. The Mudigonda branch of the Chalukyas held it as Koravipura, the seat of their Koravi country. A stone inscription there tells how a Mudigonda chief recovered it from the Rashtrakutas in the time of the Eastern Chalukya Chalukya-Bhima I. The early Kakatiyas also held it for a time.

Kurikyal

Village near Gangadhara in the Karimnagar district of Telangana. On the Bommala Gutta, a rocky hill in its lands, Jinavallabha, younger brother of the Kannada poet Pampa, carved Jaina images and an inscription in Sanskrit, Kannada and Telugu. He did this in the time of the Chalukya king Arikesari II of Vemulavada, about 945.

Macherla

Town on the Chandravanka in the west of the Palnadu. A Sanskrit and Telugu inscription of 1111 calls it Mahadevi-tataka and records the gift of the Haihaya chief Beta, of the Chagi family, to a temple there. The ballad of the Palnadu heroes makes it the city founded by Brahma Nayudu, and 19th-century writers called it the capital of the Palnadu heroes.

Madanur

Village about ten miles from Ongole. The copper plates of the Maliyapundi grant of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II (945–970) were found in its Ramalingesvara temple. The temple also has a stone inscription recording a gift of the village in the Vijayanagara period.

Magallu

Village near Nandigama, probably the Mangallu of an Eastern Chalukya grant of Amma II. The grant was issued while Danarnava held the kingdom, and it gave the village to a Brahmin at the request of Kakatya Gundyana. The 1917 epigraphy report left the choice open between Magallu and Mangollu. The editor of the 1960 edition preferred Magallu because of its position on the Munneru river.

Malepadu

Village on the south bank of the Penner near Proddatur in Kadapa district. The copper plates of the Telugu Chola king Punyakumara and a stone inscription of Satyaditya came to light here in 1904. The 1956 editors of the Telugu Chola records thought it was perhaps Biriparu, one of the family's capitals.

Manchikallu

Village in the old Palnad taluk of the Guntur district, near Rentachintala. A fragment of an octagonal pillar came from here, with a Prakrit inscription of the Pallava king Simhavarman. D. C. Sircar took the inscription for the earliest Pallava record.

Mangalagiri

Town at the foot of a hill twelve miles north-east of Guntur, with a temple of Narasimha on a rock-cut platform up the hill and a deep square reservoir in the town. A four-sided pillar near the steps of the hill temple records that Saluva Timma, minister of Krishnadeva Raya, captured Kondavidu on 23 June 1515. It also records the gifts of his nephew Nadindla Appa, among them a temple with nine golden pinnacles for the god of Mangalasaila.

Mayidavolu

Village about twelve miles east of Narasaraopet, formerly in the Kistna and later the Guntur district, where the Prakrit copper plates of the Pallava crown prince Sivaskandavarman, the earliest Pallava charter, were dug up in 1899 on the site of an abandoned village with the ruins of a small old temple.

Mudigonda

Village near Khammam in Telangana. It is identified with Mudugondu, the place that gave its name to the Mudigonda branch of the Chalukyas in the copper-plate grant of Kusumayudha IV. Its inscriptions include a broken Kannada record of 999 and two Telugu records of 1294 for the temple of Gopinatha.

Mukhalingam

Village on the left bank of the Vamsadhara in the Srikakulam district. Since 1897 it has been identified with Kalinganagara, the capital named in the copper-plate grants of the Eastern Ganga kings. Its three Orissan-style Siva temples, the Madhukesvara, Bhimesvara and Somesvara, stand among ruins that stretch south to Nagarakatakam. They carry scores of Ganga inscriptions in Telugu and Sanskrit.

Nadagam

Village in the Narasannapeta area of the Srikakulam district. A cultivator found the copper plates of the Ganga king Vajrahasta here in the 1890s. The plates, dated in Saka 979 (1058), give the date of Vajrahasta's coronation in 1038 and a genealogy of the Ganga kings.

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.

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.

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.

Patancheru

Town near Hyderabad, in the old Medak district of Telangana. A Kannada inscription there records a grant made on the day of the coronation of the Western Chalukya king Somesvara III in February 1127. P. B. Desai took it to identify Patancheru with Pottalakere. J. F. Fleet had listed Pottalakere among the minor capitals of Jayasimha II and placed it in the Bellary district.

Phirangipuram

Village near Guntur, two miles from the Kondavidu hills. A pillar in front of its Virabhadra temple carries a verse inscription of 1410, composed by Srinatha. It records the tank Santana-sagara built by Suramamba, queen of the Reddi king Peda Komati Vema.

Pithapuram

Town in the Godavari country, about twelve miles north by east of Kakinada (Cocanada). It has been identified with Pishtapura, the fortress taken by the Chalukya king Pulakesin II according to his Aihole inscription of 634–35. It has also been identified with the Pishtapura of Samudragupta's Allahabad inscription.

Polamuru

Village near Anaparti in the former Ramachandrapuram taluk of Godavari district. D. C. Sircar identified it with Puloburu, the village granted by the Vishnukundin king Madhavavarman Janashraya. The Eastern Chalukya Jayasimha I granted it again to the donee's son. Another scholar placed the village at a Polamuru in Bhimavaram taluk.

Polasa (Polavasa)

Village in the Jagtial country of the old Karimnagar district of Telangana. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry identified it with Polavasa, the capital of the Jaina chief Medaraja and his family. They were feudatories (subordinate chiefs) of the Western Chalukyas, and their fief adjoined the Kakatiya country. The Kakatiya Rudradeva sacked Polavasa before 1163.

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.

Rajula-Mandagiri

Hamlet of Juthru near Pattikonda, Kurnool district, where a damaged copy of Asoka's Minor Rock Edicts is carved on the rock of the Ramalingesvara temple.

Ramatirtham

Village near Vizianagaram, where a family of pandits kept the copper-plate grant of the Vishnukundin king Indravarman. It was published in 1914 as the Ramatirtham plates. The grant itself concerns a village in the Plaki district, which most writers place in the Vizianagaram region.

Samalkot and Chalukya-Bhimavaram

Town seven miles north of Kakinada (Cocanada). It takes in the old village of Bhimavaram, called Chalukya-Bhimavaram in its inscriptions after the Eastern Chalukya king Chalukya-Bhima. Its great Bhimesvara temple, one of the five Pancharama shrines of Shiva, is named in an inscription of 1202 as a foundation of that king. Samalkot was later the first seat of the Pithapuram zamindars and an English garrison town.

Simhachalam

Hill just north of Visakhapatnam with the temple of Narasimha, the richest and best-known shrine of the old Vizagapatam district. More than five hundred inscriptions on the temple record gifts from the Chola king Kulottunga I, the Eastern Ganga kings and their feudatories, the Reddis and the Vijayanagara king Krishnadeva Raya.

Srikakulam

Town on the Langulya river, formerly Chicacole. In 1908 it was the headquarters of a taluk of the Ganjam district. A hoard of six copper-plate grants dug up in the town is now in the Madras Museum. It includes several of the oldest grants of the Ganga kings of Kalinganagara. In the Qutb Shahi period the town was the capital of the Chicacole Sarkar.

Srikurmam

Village and place of pilgrimage near Srikakulam, with the temple of Vishnu as the tortoise (Kurma). The temple's black stone pillars carry more than a hundred inscriptions. Many of them are of the Eastern Ganga kings, their ministers and feudatories (subordinate chiefs), and of the Gajapatis.

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.

Tadikonda

Village about eight miles north of Guntur, identified by B. V. Krishna Rao with Tandikonda, which the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II gave with three other villages to the temple of Uma-Mahesvara at Bezwada. Two old tanks named in the grant were still in use in the 1930s, and a mound on the bank of one held the ruins of a Shiva temple.

Talamanchi

Village north of Nellore town, in the old Nellore taluk. Here a ploughman turned up the copper-plate grant of the sixth year of the Chalukya king Vikramaditya I (660). He found it in land called Talamanchipadu, said to be the site of a former village.

Teki

Village in the eastern Godavari delta, formerly in Ramachandrapuram taluk. In 1901 a cultivator ploughing his field here found the copper plates of the Chola-Chalukya viceroy Rajaraja-Chodaganga. Before the Godavari anicut (dam) the village also gave its name to one of the old irrigation channels on the eastern side of the delta.

Thanjavur (Tanjore)

City in the Kaveri delta of the Tamil country, the capital of the Chola king Rajaraja I. His great Rajarajesvara temple, begun at the end of the 10th century and finished about 1012, carries the inscriptions in which he claims the conquest of Vengai-nadu, the Eastern Chalukya country of the Telugu coast.

Tippaluru

Village in the former Kamalapuram taluk of Kadapa district, the Tirpaluru of an early Telugu stone inscription of the Telugu Chola Punyakumara. The letters of the inscription resemble those of the Pallava Mahendravarman I. Its date contains the earliest mention of the hora (planetary hour) then known in south Indian inscriptions.

Tripurantakam

Temple village in the Markapur country, in the old Kurnool district and the later Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh, with the temple of Tripurantakesvara. Kannada inscriptions of the Western Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI stand there. One of them, of 1126, names his general Anantapala as ruler of the Vengi twelve-thousand. They mark the eastern reach of the kingdom of Kalyani.

Umamahesvaram

Hill shrine of Siva near Achampet in the Mahbubnagar district, known as the northern gateway of Srisailam. The Recherla chief Mada Nayaka of Devarakonda built a pavilion for the god here in 1377.

Vandram

Village in the western Godavari delta near Bhimavaram, where copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II (945–970) were found in a backyard and edited in 1908. The grant gives a village to Kuppanayya, a minister who had founded a Shiva shrine at Draksharama.

Vavveru

Village near Buchireddipalem in the old Kovur taluk of the Nellore district. About 1928 the copper-plate grant of the Pallava king Simhavarman, giving the village of Vilavatti, was dug up here from about eight feet below the old village site. Its editor thought Vilavatti might be Vavveru itself or the neighbouring Vidavaluru.

Velpuru

Village in the former Sattenapalle taluk of Guntur district. Its hilltop Ramalingasvamin temple holds a marble pillar with the only known stone inscription of the Vishnukundin dynasty. The hill is covered with old bricks of the kind found on Buddhist stupa mounds, and a second early Brahmi inscription has been found in the village.

Vemulavada

Temple town in the Karimnagar country of Telangana (Rajanna Sircilla district since 2016), called Lembulavataka in its 10th-century inscriptions. It was the capital of the Chalukyas of Vemulavada, feudatories of the Rashtrakutas, and the court of Arikesari II, patron of the Kannada poet Pampa. Later it was the seat of governors of the Chalukyas of Kalyani. In 1909 it was a jagir town of the Sirsilla taluk, with a temple beside a large tank. In the temple enclosure was the tomb of a Muslim saint honoured by Hindus and Muslims alike.

Vemuluripadu (Vemalurpadu)

Village close to the Phirangipuram railway station in Guntur district, from a resident of which the Vemalurpadu plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II were acquired for the Madras Museum in 1910.

Vengi (Pedavegi)

Village a few miles north of Eluru (Ellore). It stands on the site generally taken to be Vengipura, the capital of the Salankayana kings and then of the early Eastern Chalukyas. Nineteenth-century surveys found ruined temples and mounds spread over Pedavegi, Chinavegi and Denduluru. The city gave its name to the whole country between the Krishna and the Godavari.

Vijayawada (Bezwada)

Town on the north bank of the Krishna, where the river passes through a gap in the hills. Eastern Chalukya records call it Vijayavada, and the British called it Bezwada. Copper plates of Chalukya-Bhima I were found in a quarry chamber here in 1897. A pillar in its Mallesvara temple carries one of the earliest Telugu verse inscriptions, of the Eastern Chalukya Yuddhamalla.

Yelavarru

Village near Amruthalur in the Repalle country of Guntur district, the Elavarru of a copper-plate grant of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II (945–970). The grant gives the village itself to a Brahmin treasury official. The plates were dug up there in 1864, hanging from an iron bar across a buried jar.

Jaggayyapeta stupa

c. 200 BCE

Small early Buddhist stupa on Dhana Bodu hill near Jaggayyapeta. Its old limestone casing slabs and Mauryan-type letters point to the 2nd century BCE. Pillar inscriptions of the Ikshvaku king Virapurushadatta record a later dedication.

Padmakshi Temple, Hanamkonda

1117 CE

A small, plain temple on the hill south of Hanamkonda, now worshipped as the goddess Padmakshi. The inscribed pillar in front of it records that in December 1117, in the reign of the Kakatiya Prola II, Mailama, wife of the minister Beta, built a Jaina temple, the Kadalalaya-basadi, on the hill. H. Krishna Sastri took the temple to be that basadi and called it the earliest known building of the Kakatiya period.

Thousand Pillar Temple

1163 CE

The triple-shrined Rudreshvara temple at Hanamkonda, dedicated to Shiva, Vishnu and Surya. The Kakatiya ruler Rudradeva consecrated it in January 1163 and inscribed on it the record of his family's rise to power.

Temples of Pillalamarri

c. 1195 CE

Three twelfth- and thirteenth-century temples at Pillalamarri near Suryapet. Chiefs of the Recherla family, who served the Kakatiya kings, built them. A pillar inscription of 1195, in the reign of Rudradeva, records that Recherla Namireddi built three temples there. Another pillar, of 1208, stands beside the Somesvara temple. G. Yazdani surveyed them in 1926–27 and uncovered a painting of the churning of the ocean in one of them.

Temples of Nagulapadu

c. 1234 CE

Two richly carved temples in the deserted walled town of Nagulapadu on the Musi, south of Suryapet. Members of the Recherla family built them in the reign of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva. Inscriptions in them are dated 1234 and 1258, and a pillar before them names Prataparudra in 1303.

Upparapalli Temple

c. 1236 CE

A ruined triple-shrined Shiva temple at Uparpalli (Upparapalli) in the old Karimnagar district. A square pillar in front of it carries a Telugu inscription of 24 January 1236, in the reign of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva. It records lands given to the god by Kataya, son of a minister of the general Recherla Rudra. Henry Cousens thought the temple was of the same age as those at Hanamkonda and Palampet.

Qutb Shahi Tombs

c. 1543–1674 CE

Royal burial ground half a mile north of Golconda Fort. It holds the domed tombs of seven Qutb Shahi kings and members of their families, with mosques and a mortuary bath, built between the 1540s and the 1670s.

Badshahi Ashurkhana

c. 1593 CE

The royal hall of Muharram mourning in Hyderabad, built by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah. The Imperial Gazetteer (1909) and Campbell (1898) date it to 1594. Bilgrami (1927) read a date of AH 1001 (1592–93) in the enamelled-tile inscription over the central niche, and dated the tile work to the last year of the king's reign. Abdullah Qutb Shah's name is also in the tiles, and the outer halls were added under Nizam Ali Khan.

Jami Masjid, Hyderabad

1597 CE

Congregational (Friday) mosque of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, a short way north-east of the Charminar, built under the minister Aminu-l-Mulk. The chronogram over its door gives AH 1006 (1597). The Imperial Gazetteer dates it to 1596, and Campbell and Rocco to 1598. It is a double hall of seven arches on a paved courtyard. It once had a school, a monastery and a Turkish bath attached, and by 1898 houses and shops crowded round it.

Dutch tombs, Machilipatnam

1624–1743 CE

Carved granite gravestones of officers and families of the Dutch East India Company at Machilipatnam (Masulipatam), the oldest European monuments of the Telugu coast. The earliest is the tomb of Jacob Dedel, chief of the Company on the Coromandel coast, who died in 1624. A walled burial ground behind the Collector's office, at the place still called Valandupalem, holds slabs dated from 1662 to 1743, with coats of arms and verse epitaphs in Dutch.

Toli Masjid

1671 CE

Qutb Shahi mosque on the old road from the Purana Pul to Golconda. Musa Khan, chamberlain and general of Abdullah Qutb Shah, built it. The inscription in its prayer niche gives the chronogram year AH 1082 (1671). G. Yazdani described it in 1918 as typical of the Qutb Shahi style, with Hindu motifs such as pot-shaped bases, elephant-tusk brackets and temple niches. Campbell (1898) dated it to 1604 under Muhammad Quli, but the inscription does not support that date.

Alampur temples (Nava Brahma temples)

Group of early stone temples inside the old fort of Alampur on the Tungabhadra, in today's Telangana, known as the Nava Brahma or Navalingesvara temples. Inscriptions on them name queens and kings of the Chalukyas of Badami. They name a queen of Vikramaditya I (655–680), a queen of Vinayaditya, and Vijayaditya, under whom an enclosure was built in 704 and 713. The Nizam's Archaeological Department surveyed them in 1926-27 and compared their curved towers with the Papanatha temple at Pattadakal.

Bayyaram Tank

A large tank at Bayyaram in the old Khammam district, called Dharmakirti-samudra. It was built by Mailama (Mailamba), sister of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva and wife of Natavadi Rudra. The inscribed granite pillar that records it, found in 1965, gives the fullest genealogy (family history) of the Kakatiya family.

Bhimesvara temple, Chalukya-Bhimavaram

Two-storeyed Shiva temple at Bhimavaram in Samalkot, one of the five Pancharama shrines. Its inscriptions call it Chalukya-Bhimesvara and the place Kumararama. A Pithapuram inscription of 1202 says the Eastern Chalukya king Chalukya-Bhima founded a temple of that name, and E. Hultzsch (1897) identified it with this one. Its own dated inscriptions begin in the late 11th or 12th century.

Bhimesvara temple, Chebrolu

Small two-storeyed Shiva temple on the old mound at Chebrolu, near Guntur, with the linga of Bhimesvara in a closed upper sanctum. M. Rama Rao (1964) gave it to the Eastern Chalukya king Chalukya-Bhima I, after whom he took the god to be named. The older surveys of Chebrolu do not mention it. They found the town's inscriptions at the Nagesvara temple, the former temple of Kumarasvamin, and E. Hultzsch could not identify the 'Chodabhimesvara' named in an inscription of 1213.

Bhimesvara temple, Draksharama

Two-storeyed Shiva temple at Draksharama in the Godavari delta, one of the five Pancharama shrines and the most famous temple of the coastal Telugu country. Its walls carry some 270 inscriptions dated from 1055. Popular tradition in 1907 gave it to an unknown Chola king. M. Rama Rao (1964) gave it to the Eastern Chalukya king Chalukya-Bhima I, after whom he took the god to be named.

Bommala Gutta (Kurikyal)

Rocky hill at Kurikyal near Gangadhara, west of Karimnagar. Jaina images are carved on a rock at its summit. Beside them is the inscription of Jinavallabha, younger brother of the Kannada poet Pampa, of about 945. The inscription calls the rock the Siddha-sila. It says that Jinavallabha had the first and last Jinas and the goddess Chakresvari carved there, and built a temple, a tank and a garden nearby.

Golconda Fort

Walled hill fortress five miles west of Hyderabad. The Bahmani sultans received it from the ruler of Warangal in the 14th century. It became the seat of the Qutb Shahi sultans and was rebuilt in stone under Ibrahim Qutb Shah. It fell to Aurangzeb in 1687 after a siege of more than eight months.

Kshiraramalingesvara temple, Palakollu

Shiva temple in the middle of Palakollu, in the western Godavari delta, one of the five Pancharama shrines under the name Kshirarama. M. Rama Rao (1964) gave its shrine to the Eastern Chalukya king Chalukya-Bhima I, and the foreword to his monograph counts it among the original Chalukya buildings. Its own inscriptions, more than forty, run from 1136 to 1640. They record gifts of the Velanadu chiefs, the Haihaya chiefs of Konamandala, the Chalukya chiefs of Nidadavolu and the Reddi kings.

Rachakonda Fort

Hill fort of the Recherla Velama kings on the twin hills of Rajukonda and Naganayanikonda, east of Hyderabad. Three inscriptions of August 1365 record that Anapota Nayaka built its stone walls and wells and dug the tank between the two hills. Sultan Quli of Golconda took it by storm early in the sixteenth century.

Simhachalam temple

Temple of Narasimha on the Simhachalam hill north of Visakhapatnam, described in 1907 as the most famous, richest and best carved shrine of the district. Its walls hold more than five hundred inscriptions, many of Eastern Ganga kings. The district gazetteer credits the Ganga king Narasimha I with building its central shrine, halls and enclosing verandah in black stone in 1267–68. Its records include a Tamil inscription of Kulottunga I, gifts of Reddi and Matsya chiefs, and the inscriptions of Krishnadeva Raya of Vijayanagara.

Srikurmam temple

Temple of Vishnu in his tortoise incarnation at Srikurmam, near Srikakulam. Its granite verandas and black stone pillars carry more than a hundred inscriptions. Most of them belong to the Eastern Ganga kings who came after Anantavarman Chodaganga, to their ministers and feudatories, and later to the Gajapatis. An inscription of 1283 credits a Brahmin contemporary of a king Anangabhima with building an enclosure of black stone for the temple.

Temples of Mukhalingam

Three Siva temples at Mukhalingam on the Vamsadhara: the Madhukesvara (Mukhalingesvara), Bhimesvara (Aniyankabhimesvara) and Somesvara. They are in the Orissan style and stand among the ruins of Kalinganagara, the capital of the Eastern Ganga kings. A grant of Anantavarman Chodaganga credits the Madhukesvara temple to an early king Kamarnava, and the Bhimesvara is thought to be named after the king Vajrahasta Aniyankabhima. Their walls and pillars carry scores of Telugu and Sanskrit inscriptions of the Gangas.

Temples of Vemulavada

Group of temples at Vemulavada, the capital of the Chalukyas of Vemulavada, round the Rajarajesvara (Rajesvara) temple and its tank. The 10th-century inscription of Arikesari II names four temples there: of Rajesvara, the Sun, Baddegesvara and Nagaresvara. It stands in the Bhimesvara temple, formerly the Baddegesvara. N. Venkataramanayya thought the Rajesvara and Baddegesvara were named after, or built by, kings of the family. Later records of the Chalukyas of Kalyani add temples of Rajadityesvara and Harikesvara.

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.

Bhattiprolu relic-casket inscriptions

c. 200 BCE

Ten short Prakrit inscriptions on three stone relic caskets and a crystal from the Bhattiprolu stupa, found by A. Rea in 1892. Bühler dated them no later than about 200 BCE. Their unusual variety of Brahmi is among the earliest writing found in the region.

Amaravati inscription of the time of Vasishthiputra Pulumavi

c. 130 CE

A two-line Prakrit inscription on a broken coping stone from the Amaravati stupa. It records a Dharmachakra (wheel of the law) set up at the western gate of the Great Chaitya, in a regnal year of the Satavahana king Vasishthiputra Sri Pulumavi. The year itself is lost.

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.

Chinna inscription of Yajna Sri Satakarni

c. 195 CE

A damaged six-line Prakrit inscription on a stone found on the sea-shore south of the Krishna near the village of Chinna, Kistna district, and later kept in the Madras Museum. It is dated in the 27th year of Gautamiputra Siriyana Satakani (Yajna Sri Satakarni). It is the latest dated record of that king.

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.

Nagarjunakonda inscriptions of Chamtisiri

c. 250 CE

Prakrit inscriptions at Nagarjunakonda recording gifts by the Ikshvaku princess Chamtisiri. They are cut on the ayaka pillars of the Great Stupa (Mahachaitya), on the pillars of a stone hall and on the floor of an apsidal shrine beside it. They are dated in the 6th, 15th and 18th regnal years of King Virapurushadatta.

Nagarjunakonda inscription of Bodhisiri

c. 268 CE

Prakrit inscription on the floor of an apsidal (round-ended) shrine on the Chula-Dhammagiri at Nagarjunakonda, dated in the 14th year of King Mathariputra (Virapurushadatta). It records the gifts of the lay woman Bodhisiri to Buddhist monks from Sri Lanka. It names the city of Vijayapuri, the Sriparvata and the trading town of Kantakasela.

Memorial pillar of Chamtamula, Nagarjunakonda

c. 273 CE

A carved pillar found near Stupa 9 at Nagarjunakonda, with a Prakrit inscription. It records that the sisters, mothers and queens of the dead Ikshvaku king Chamtamula raised it in the reign of his son Virapurushadatta. Vogel dated it to the king's 20th year. Sircar re-read the date as the cyclic year Vijaya, 273–74, the earliest known use of the cyclic year in Indian inscriptions.

Jaggayyapeta inscriptions of Virapurushadatta

c. 274 CE

Three copies of a Prakrit inscription on the ayaka pillars of the Jaggayyapeta stupa. They record the gift of five pillars at the eastern gate of the Great Chaitya by the artisan Siddhartha, in the 20th year of the Ikshvaku king Virapurushadatta. James Burgess found them in 1882, and they were the first Ikshvaku records to be discovered.

Nagarjunakonda inscription of Abhira Vasushena

c. 278 CE

A Sanskrit-Prakrit inscription found on the Krishna bank at Nagarjunakonda in 1958–59, dated in year 30 of the Abhira king Vasishthiputra Vasushena. It records that a local noble and men from Avanti, Sanjayapura and Vanavasa installed the god Ashtabhujasvamin, a form of Vishnu. D. C. Sircar dated it to about 278–79, and took it as evidence of a short Abhira break in Ikshvaku rule.

Nagarjunakonda inscription of Pushpabhadrasvamin

c. 295 CE

A Sanskrit inscription on a four-faced flagstaff pillar from a temple at the foot of Nagarjuna's hill, dated in the 16th year of the Ikshvaku king Ehuvula Chamtamula. It records that his son, the prince Virapurushadatta, built a shrine of the god Shiva as Pushpabhadrasvamin and gave it a village. It is the first direct evidence of Shaiva worship in the Ikshvaku royal house.

Manchikallu inscription of Simhavarman

c. 300 CE

A broken Prakrit inscription on part of an eight-sided stone pillar from Manchikallu in the Palnad taluk. It records gifts by the Pallava king Simhavarman of the Bharadvaja gotra to the priests of the god Jivasivasvamin. D. C. Sircar, who edited it, took it for the earliest Pallava record. He dated it first to the end of the 3rd century and later to the middle of the 4th.

Ellore plates of Devavarman

c. 345 CE

A Prakrit copper-plate grant of the 13th year of the Salankayana king Devavarman, issued from Vengipura. It is addressed to the villagers of Elura (Ellore, now Eluru), and gives twenty nivartanas of land and house sites to a Brahmin. E. Hultzsch edited it in 1908, and it gave the dynasty its modern name, 'the Salankayana Maharajas of Vengipura'.

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.

Omgodu grant of Simhavarman (No. 2)

c. 440 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Pallava king Simhavarman, son of the crown prince Vishnugopa, made in the fourth year of his reign. It gives the village of Omgodu in Karmarashtra, bounded by Kodikim, Narachadu, Kadakuduru and Penukaparru, to the Brahman Devasarman of Kundur. Its editor, H. Krishna Sastri, thought it a 7th-century copy of an earlier grant. Its date became part of the debate over the Lokavibhaga date of 436 for Simhavarman.

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.

Jirjingi plates of Indravarman

c. 537 CE

A copper-plate grant of the Ganga king Indravarman, lord of Trikalinga, issued from Dantapura and dated in the year 39. It was found in an old temple site at Jirjingi near Tekkali in the Srikakulam country. When R. K. Ghoshal re-edited it in 1940, it was the oldest known record of the Eastern Gangas. It gives the village of Jijjika, the modern Jirjingi, to a Brahmin. On V. V. Mirashi's epoch (starting date) of the Ganga era, the year 39 falls in about 537.

Kalamalla inscription of Erikal Muturaju Dhananjaya

c. 575 CE

A damaged pillar inscription from Kalamalla in Kadapa district, dated from the shape of its letters to about 575 CE. Its editors called it one of the earliest records written entirely in Telugu.

Achyutapuram plates of Indravarman

c. 585 CE

Three small copper plates, found near Mukhalingam in the Srikakulam country. They record a gift of land made at Kalinganagara by the Ganga king Indravarman, alias Rajasimha, at the consecration of a tank in honour of his mother. The grant is dated in the 87th year of a reckoning that most later scholars took to be the Ganga era. The plates are among the best-preserved early Ganga grants and show the box-headed Kalinga script.

Erragudipadu inscription of Erikal-Mutturaju

c. 590 CE

An early Telugu stone record beside the Chennakesava temple at Erragudipadu in the Kamalapuram country. Its letters are almost the same as those of the Kalamalla pillar, and its editors dated it to the last quarter of the 6th century or a little later. It records a tax-free grant of 24 measures of land to a Brahmana in the reign of an Erikal-Mutturaju. The witnesses included a Mutturaju called Navapriya and a 'Vallava Dukaraju', perhaps a Pallava crown prince.

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.

Malepadu plates of Punyakumara

c. 625 CE

Three Sanskrit copper plates with a lion seal, found at Malepadu in the Cuddapah district and given to the Madras Museum. They record a grant of land by the Telugu Chola king Punyakumara in the fifth year of his reign. Published in 1912, they gave the first family tree of the Telugu Cholas, from Nandivarman through Dhananjaya and Mahendravikrama. Their date has been put near 800, about 625 and about 750.

Tippaluru inscription of Punyakumara

c. 625 CE

An early Telugu stone record at Tippaluru in the Kamalapuram country. It was issued while Erikalla-Mutturaju Punyakumara ruled Renandu from his capital Chirpali. Its ornamental letters look like those of the Pallava Mahendravarman I's Vallam rock inscription. It names the weekday and the hora (planetary hour), the earliest mention of the hora then known in south Indian inscriptions.

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.

Pedda-Vegi plates of Jayasimha I

c. 632–663 CE

An undated Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the second Eastern Chalukya king, Jayasimha I Sarvasiddhi. It was found two or three feet underground near Pedda-Vegi, the old capital of Vengi. It gives the village of Kombaru, identified with Komali in Repalle taluk, to a Brahmin from Kukkanur. It is the only grant of the dynasty that opens with a prayer to the sun, and it calls the founder Vishnuvarman. It was registered in 1917–18 and edited by V. Rangacharya in 1928.

Niduparu grant of Jayasimha I

c. 633–663 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the second Eastern Chalukya king, Jayasimha I Sarvasiddhi, issued from Asanapura. It gives the village of Niduparu, near the royal residence of Ganderu, to the Brahmin Katisarman, whose grandfather belonged to the college (ghatika) of Asanapura. It was examined in 1916–17, and E. Hultzsch edited it in 1926. Ganderu has been identified with Kanteru and Niduparu with Nidamarru, both in Guntur taluk.

Aihole inscription of Pulakesin II

634 CE

A Sanskrit poem of 37 verses by the Jaina poet Ravikirti, engraved in 634–35 on the Meguti temple at Aihole in Karnataka. It is the main account of the conquests of the Chalukya king Pulakesin II, including his eastern campaign. There he humbled the Kalingas and Kosalas, took Pishtapura (Pithapuram), and ravaged 'the water of Kunala', which Kielhorn identified with the Kolleru lake. He also defeated the Pallava king before Kanchi.

Pulibumra plates of Jayasimha I

c. 637 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the second Eastern Chalukya king, Jayasimha I. It gives the village of Pulibumra (Polamuru) in the Guddavadi district to Rudrasarman, whose father had received the same village from the Vishnukundin king Madhavavarman. It was noticed in 1914 and edited by V. Rangacharya in 1928. It is dated by number signs that have been read as the 4th, 5th and 15th regnal year, and it fed a long argument over the length of Jayasimha's reign.

Gudivada plates of Jayasimha I (three grants)

c. 659 CE

Three Sanskrit copper-plate grants of the second Eastern Chalukya king, Prithivi-Jayasimha-Vallabha I. They were kept by a landholding family at Gudivada in the old Sarvasiddhi taluk of Visakhapatnam district, and M. Somasekhara Sarma edited them in 1960. All concern land at or near Gudivada (Kulivataka or Kudivada) in the Plakki district. The first, of the king's 18th year, is dated by seasons and fortnights, and the editor worked it out as 12 February 659. The journal's editor doubted his conclusions and took the third grant for a later copy, perhaps a forgery.

Amudalapadu plates of Vikramaditya I

660 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the fifth year of the Chalukya king Vikramaditya I, from Amudalapadu in the Alampur taluk (now in Telangana). D. C. Sircar dated it to 30 April 660. It records the gift of a village to the king's guru Sudarsanacharya when the king was initiated into the Shaiva faith. Its letters are early Telugu-Kannada, and the editors of Epigraphia Telanganica (2023) call it the earliest Telugu inscription in Telangana.

Talamanchi plates of Vikramaditya I

660 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the sixth year of the Chalukya king Vikramaditya I, found by a ploughman at Talamanchi in the Nellore taluk and now in the Madras Museum. It gives the village of Elasatti to the king's own teacher, Srimeghacharya. F. Kielhorn dated its solar eclipse to 13 July 660, and used it to fix Vikramaditya's accession between September 654 and July 655.

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.

Gadval plates of Vikramaditya I

674 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the 20th year of the Chalukya king Vikramaditya I, dated 25 April 674. It was kept at Gadwal (then in Hyderabad State, now in Telangana) and is said to have been found in the fields there. Issued from a camp at Uragapura on the south bank of the Kaveri, it names the three Pallava kings whom Vikramaditya defeated. E. Hultzsch noted two Telugu terms for measures of grain in it.

Chicacole plates of Devendravarman, son of Gunarnava

c. 681 CE

A copper-plate grant of the Ganga king Devendravarman, son of Gunarnava, issued from Kalinganagara and dated in the 183rd year of the Ganga reckoning. It is one of six sets of plates dug up together at Srikakulam (then Chicacole). It gives the village of Poppangika as an agrahara (Brahmin village) to six Brahmin brothers living at Kalinganagara. It shows an early use of a decimal zero beside the old number symbols.

Vunna Guravayapalem plates of Paramesvaravarman I

687 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Pallava king Paramesvaravarman I, issued from Kanchipura in his 19th year. It gives the village of Kubunuru, on the southern bank of the river Musuna in Pumi-rashtra, to the Brahman Devasarman. The plates were shown to P. Seshadri Sastri at Vunna Guravayapalem in the Podili taluk of Nellore. D. C. Sircar and Seshadri Sastri edited them from photographs. The grant is dated to 22 December 687 and gave the first date for this king that can be checked.

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.

Ipur plates of Vishnuvardhana III

c. 709–746 CE

Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Eastern Chalukya king Vishnuvardhana III (reigned about 709–746), dated in his 23rd year. It records a gift of a field in Jalayuru, in the Plolnandu district near Pithapuram, and a house site with a flower garden. Prithivipothi, daughter of Maghinduvaraja, made the gift. The plates were kept at Ipur in Tenali taluk with two Vishnukundin grants. E. Hultzsch edited them in 1926, and he took the lady for a queen and her father for the Pallava king Mahendravarman III.

Reyuru grant of Narasimhavarman II

c. 711 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant issued from Kanchipura in the 12th year of the Pallava king Narasimhavarman II, on a lunar eclipse in Vaisakha. It gives the village of Reyuru in Mel-Mundarashtra to the Brahman Kumaramandasarman of Kuravasri. It was kept in the archives of the Raja of Kalahasti and edited by P. B. Desai. It is the only dated record of this king. Desai placed the village at Revuru in the Atmakur taluk of Nellore.

Malepadu stone inscription of Satyaditya

c. 725 CE

A short Telugu stone record from Malepadu in the Cuddapah district. It records a gift of land at Chirumburu (Chilamakuru) by the Telugu Chola prince Satyaditya, ruler of the Siddhi thousand and the Renandu seven thousand. It was published in 1912 as a sample of the earliest Telugu records of the district, and it is written from the bottom upwards. Its two editors read the family tree in it differently.

Dommara-Nandyala plates of Punyakumara

c. 750 CE

Three Sanskrit copper plates with a lion seal, found in a sealed pot at Dommara-Nandyala in the Jammalamadugu taluk and edited in 1956. They record a grant by the Telugu Chola king Punyakumara, in his tenth year, to five Brahmanas. They repeat the family tree of the Malepadu plates and correct the name of their writer. Their editor said they contain the earliest inscriptional reference in south India to Siva as Lakutapani, and he dated them to the middle of the 8th century.

Alas plates of the Yuvaraja Govinda II

770 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant dated in 770, issued in the reign of the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I by his son, the crown prince Govinda II. He issued it from a camp 'at the confluence of the Krishnaverna and the Musi', after the army had invaded the Vengi country and humbled its king. It was found at Alas in the Kurundwad State (now Maharashtra) and published by D. R. Bhandarkar in 1901. It is the earliest record of war between the Rashtrakutas and the Eastern Chalukyas. J. F. Fleet held the plates to be a later copy, but probably based on a genuine original.

Chamaluru inscription of Vijayaditya Chola

c. 770 CE

A broken Telugu stone at Chamaluru in the Jammalamadugu country, dated in the 22nd year of Prithivivallabha Vijayaditya Chola, while a Bana king ruled Pambuliggi under him. Its lost lines were restored from an eye-copy (a copy drawn by hand) made by Colin Mackenzie's assistants. Its editors placed the king about 750. They read the record as evidence that the Telugu Cholas had thrown off Chalukya overlordship and subdued the Banas.

Kuruvagatta inscription of Biragriha

c. 793–814 CE

A short undated inscription, with a Sanskrit verse and a Kannada prose passage, cut on a stone in front of an image of the goddess Chaudamba near Kuruvagatta in the old Mahbubnagar district. It praises Biragriha, son of Vinayaditya of the Chalukya family, as a friend of Govinda-vallabha, son of Kalivallabha of the Rashtrakuta family. N. Venkataramanayya identified these two as the Rashtrakuta kings Govinda III and Dhruva. He took the inscription to be the earliest record of the Chalukyas of Vemulavada.

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.

Alamanda plates of Anantavarman

c. 802 CE

A copper-plate grant of the Ganga king Anantavarman, son of Rajendravarman, found near Alamanda in the Vizagapatam district (now Vizianagaram). It was issued from Kalinganagara on a solar eclipse at the consecration of a tank, and it gives the village of Medelaka to a Brahmin. It is dated in the 304th year of the reign of the Gangeya race, one of the clearest references to a Ganga era.

Radhanpur plates of Govinda III

808 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Rashtrakuta king Govinda III, kept in the Radhanpur State in Gujarat. It is dated at an eclipse of the sun that F. Kielhorn equated with 27 July 808. Its verses describe the king's campaigns. They say that the lord of Vengi came at Govinda's command and built an enclosure for him 'like a servant'. J. F. Fleet identified this lord of Vengi with the Eastern Chalukya Vijayaditya II. Fleet thought the place was Manyakheta (Malkhed), but Kielhorn translated it as an enclosure for the king's camp on the Tungabhadra.

Addanki inscription of Pandaranga

c. 844 CE

A damaged stone inscription of the mid-9th century from Addanki. Its opening Telugu verse, in the taruvoja metre, praises Pandaranga, army commander of the Eastern Chalukya king Gunaga-Vijayaditya III.

Masulipatam (?) plates of Vijayaditya III

c. 844–888 CE

An undated Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Eastern Chalukya king Gunaga-Vijayaditya III (reigned about 844–888). It is known only from Sir Walter Elliot's impressions, and was perhaps received from the Collector of Masulipatam in 1846. The king gives a village in the Gudravara district to a Brahmin, apparently for his advice in the battle in which an enemy named Mangi was killed. The grant was conveyed by Pandaranga, the general praised in the Addanki inscription.

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.

Bezwada pillar inscription of Yuddhamalla

c. 890–950 CE

A Telugu verse inscription on a stone pillar in the Mallesvara temple at Bezwada (Vijayawada). It records that a Chalukya king Yuddhamalla built a temple and a monastery for Kumarasvamin (Karttikeya). It also records that a Yuddhamalla later added a front tower to a temple built by his grandfather Mallapa-raju. Its editor J. Ramayya Pantulu (1920) dated it to about 890–930 and called it the earliest Telugu poetry then known. Its date, its division into one or two records and the meaning of its fourth verse were disputed.

Gudimallam plates of the Bana king Vikramaditya II

c. 910 CE

Five copper plates with a bull seal, found at Gudimallam in the Kalahasti zamindari and acquired for the Government Museum, Madras. In Sanskrit verse and prose with a short Tamil postscript, they record that the Bana prince Vikramaditya, son of Vijayaditya Prabhumeru, confirmed an old grant of the village Viprapitha (Gudimallam) to its Brahmins. Published by E. Hultzsch in 1924, they gave a fuller family tree of the Banas and showed that their friend 'Krishna-Raja' was the Rashtrakuta Krishna III.

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.

Ederu plates of Amma I

c. 918–925 CE

Five finely engraved Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma I Vishnuvardhana, surnamed Rajamahendra (reigned about 918–925). They were found buried in a field at Ederu near Agiripalle, Kistna district, at the end of 1871. Amma I gives the village of Gonturu with twelve hamlets to his military officer Bhandanaditya, alias Kuntaditya. The verses on his predecessors tell of Vijayaditya II's 108 battles and 108 Siva temples, Vijayaditya III's wars, and Chalukya-Bhima I's reconquest of Vengi from the Rashtrakutas.

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.

Sangli plates of Govinda IV

933 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Rashtrakuta king Govinda IV, issued at his capital Manyakheta and dated 8 August 933. It is named after the place near which the plates were kept in the 19th century. Its family history says that Amoghavarsha I defeated the Chalukyas at Vingavalli, one of the few battles of the war with Vengi that the Rashtrakuta records name. J. F. Fleet edited it in 1883 with photo-lithographs of the plates.

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.

Kaluchumbarru grant of Amma II

c. 945–970 CE

Five Sanskrit copper plates, with a closing passage in Telugu, of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II, also called Vijayaditya VI (crowned 945, reigned 25 years). At the request of Chamekamba, a lady of the Pattavardhika family and a lay disciple of the Jain teacher Arhanandin, the king gives the village of Kaluchumbarru in the Attilinandu district to Arhanandin. The gift was for repairs to the dining-hall of the Jain temple called Sarvalokasraya-Jinabhavana. The plates were Sir Walter Elliot's and are in the British Museum, and where they were found is not known.

Kurkyal inscription of Jinavallabha

c. 945 CE

A rock inscription of about 945 on the Bommala Gutta, a hill at Kurikyal near Gangadhara in the Karimnagar district. Jinavallabha, younger brother of the Kannada poet Pampa, set it up. Written in Sanskrit, Kannada and Telugu, it records Jaina images, a temple, a tank and a garden made by Jinavallabha. It gives Pampa's family and home in the Vengi country, and confirms that the Chalukya king Arikesari II gave Pampa the village of Dharmavura for his Vikramarjunavijaya. Its three Telugu verses in the kanda metre are among the earliest Telugu verse.

Maliyapundi grant of Amma II

c. 945–970 CE

Five Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II (crowned 945), found in the Ramalingesvara temple at Madanur near Ongole. On the winter solstice the king gives the small village of Maliyapundi, near Dharmavaram in the Addanki country, to a Jain temple called Katakabharana. Durgaraja founded the temple; he was a great-grandson of Pandaranga, the general of Gunaga Vijayaditya III. The grant was first published in the Nellore District Inscriptions (1905), and E. Hultzsch re-edited it in 1908. It explains the Kataka-raja title and makes Pandaranga the burner of Kiranapura.

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.

Tandikonda grant of Amma II

c. 958 CE

Four surviving Sanskrit copper plates of the Eastern Chalukya king Amma II, dug up near Oruvakallu in Sattenapalle taluk about 1914–15. The finder melted down the fifth plate and the seal. The king gives Tandikonda (Tadikonda, near Guntur) and three other villages to the temple of Uma-Mahesvara at Bezwada, built by Vijayaditya II. The king's preceptor Vidyesvara composed the grant, and it sets out his spiritual line in the Kalamukha school of Pasupata Saivas. Its editor dated it to Saka 880 (958), but the journal's editor doubted his reasoning.

Parbhani plates of Arikesari III

966 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Chalukya king Arikesari III of Vemulavada, a feudatory of the Rashtrakuta Krishna III, dated 7 April 966. It gives the village of Kuttumvritti-Vanikatupalu in the Repaka Twelve of the Sabbi Thousand to the Jaina author Somadeva Suri. The gift was for the Subhadhama Jinalaya, a temple built by the king's father at the capital, Lembulapataka (Vemulavada). It is the only dated grant of the family.

Korapolu inscription of Taila II

973 CE

A Kannada inscription at Korapolu in the Medak district, dated in the reign of the Western Chalukya king Ahavamalla Taila II. P. B. Desai equated its date with 10 April 973. It records land grants by the king's feudatory Soma Permadi, who ruled from Korapolu, to a Shiva temple built by his father. It is one of the earliest records of the new dynasty.

Larger Leiden plates of Rajaraja I

1005 CE

Chola copper-plate grant, now in Leiden, recording Rajaraja I's gift in his 21st year of a village to a Buddhist monastery at Nagapattinam built by the Sailendra king of Srivijaya, confirmed after his death by Rajendra I. For the Telugu country it matters for its list of Rajaraja's conquests, which includes Vengai-nadu, the Eastern Chalukya country, and Kalingam, and for its editor's account of the Chola part in Vengi.

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.

Tiruvalangadu plates of Rajendra I

1018 CE

The largest known set of Chola copper plates, thirty-one sheets on a massive ring and seal, recording a grant of the sixth year of Rajendra I (about 1018) to the Siva temple at Tiruvalangadu in the Tamil country. Its Sanskrit verses, added later, give the Chola view of the Telugu country: Rajaraja I's killing of 'the Andhra king Bhima', and Rajendra's wait on the Godavari while his general carried the war through Orissa and Bengal to the Ganges and brought back its water.

Kalidindi grant of Rajaraja I

c. 1022 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Eastern Chalukya king Rajaraja I (Rajaraja Narendra). A farmer dug it up at Kalidindi near the Kolleru lake in 1938, and N. Venkataramanayya edited it in 1952. It records a battle in which three Chola generals sent into the Andhra country fell fighting the commanders of the Karnata (Western Chalukya) king. It also records the three Shiva temples Rajaraja built at Kalidindi in their memory. It says that the Chola emperor Rajendra gave Rajaraja his daughter Ammanga as chief queen.

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.

Mogalcheruvula grant of Kusumayudha IV

c. 1040–1065 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of Kusumayudha IV, of the Madugonda (Mudigonda) branch of the Chalukyas. It gives the village of Mogaluchuruvulu, which bordered on Koravi, to the Brahmana Doneya at a winter solstice. Cecil Bendall found the five plates in the Nizam's treasury at Hyderabad in 1899 and published them in 1903. It is undated, and from its letters it is assigned to the 11th century or later. Its pedigree of eight generations from Kokiraja is the basis of the family's history.

Nandamapundi grant of Rajaraja Narendra

1053 CE

Five copper plates of 1053 CE recording the gift of Nandamapundi village to the poet Narayana. The gift was made in the 32nd regnal year of the Eastern Chalukya king Rajaraja I. The grant names its verse-writer as Nanniyabhatta, perhaps Nannaya of the Telugu Mahabharata.

Bodhan inscription of Somesvara I

1056 CE

A Kannada inscription at Bodhan in the Nizamabad district, of the reign of the Western Chalukya king Trailokyamalla Somesvara I, dated 29 May 1056 by P. B. Desai. It records that the king's officer Jogapayya restored the ruined temple of Indranarayana and set up an image of Vishnu and a Garuda pillar there. It says that the Rashtrakuta king Indravallabha had built this temple in the town of Bodana.

Nadagam plates of Vajrahasta

1058 CE

Five copper plates with a bull seal, found by a cultivator at Nadagam in the Narasannapeta taluk (Srikakulam district). They record a grant made from Kalinganagara in Saka 979 (1058) by the Ganga king Vajrahasta, lord of the Three Kalingas, to his son-in-law Samaya. They give the exact moment of Vajrahasta's coronation in 1038 and a list of the kings before him. Their editor, G. V. Ramamurti, used them to argue that Kalinganagara was Mukhalingam.

Alampur inscription of Somesvara II, 1073

1073 CE

Kannada inscription at Alampur on the Tungabhadra, of the reign of the Western Chalukya king Bhuvanaikamalla Somesvara II ruling from Bankapura. P. B. Desai dated it to 24 April 1073. It records a gift of land to the god Brahmesvara of Alampur by the Choda chief Chiddana, who governed four districts on the Tungabhadra. It is one of about twenty Western Chalukya records at Alampur, where the god Brahmesvara is described as adorning 'the western entrance of Sriparvata'.

Dirghasi inscription of Vanapati

1075 CE

A stone inscription of Saka 997 (1075–76) at Dirghasi near Kalingapatnam, in sixteen lines of Sanskrit verse followed by seven of Telugu verse. It records that Vanapati, a Brahmin general of the Ganga king Rajaraja I, built a dancing hall before the temple of Durga and gave lamps. It credits him with victories over the Chola king, the Utkala, and the kings of Vengi, Kimidi, Kosala and Odda.

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.

Kazipet Dargah pillar inscription

1090–1098 CE

A damaged Sanskrit and Kannada pillar inscription, now in the Dargah at Kazipet near Hanamkonda. It records a Kakatiya grant of 1090 to a Kalamukha teacher of Srisailam. It also records that Beta II's son Dugga-Tribhuvanamalla set up the pillar in 1098. Its verses are the main source for the earliest Kakatiya chiefs, Beta I, Prola I and Beta II.

Gangapuram inscription of Vikramaditya VI, 1091

1091 CE

A Kannada inscription at Gangapuram in the Mahbubnagar district, of the reign of the Western Chalukya king Tribhuvanamalla Vikramaditya VI, who ruled from Kalyanapura. It is dated in Chalukya-Vikrama year 16 (25 December 1091). It records a gift of land as an endowment for astrologers. The royal preceptor Sakalaprakasa Bhattaraka made the gift for the prosperity of the emperor. Gangapuram has one of the largest groups of Western Chalukya records in Telangana.

Simhachalam inscription of Kulottunga I

1099 CE

Damaged Tamil inscription of the Chola king Kulottunga I on a slab in the mandapa of the Varaha-Narasimha temple at Simhachalam, near Visakhapatnam, dated Saka 1021 (1099). V. Rangacharya and W. Francis took it as confirmation of Kulottunga's conquest of Kalinga celebrated in the Tamil poem Kalingattupparani; Robert Sewell was more cautious.

Draksharama inscription of Kulottunga I (1103)

1103 CE

Sanskrit inscription in Telugu characters on the south wall of the Bhimesvara temple at Draksharama, dated in the 33rd year of the Chola king Kulottunga I (1103). It records the deeds of his general Vanduvaraja, also called Pallavaraja, who burnt the Kalinga country, defeated the Ganga king and Devendravarman and set up a pillar of victory on the borders of the Odra country, and his gifts in the Vengi country, including a pavilion at Draksharama. K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyer identified him with Karunakara Tondaiman, the hero of the Kalingattupparani.

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.

Draksharama inscriptions of Kulottunga I (1107)

1107 CE

Two lamp-gift inscriptions, in Telugu and in Sanskrit and Telugu, on a wall of the Bhimesvara temple at Draksharama, dated both in the 37th year of the Chalukya-Chola king Kulottunga I and in Saka 1029 (1107). Because they give the regnal year and the Saka year together, they helped fix the beginning of Kulottunga's reign as Chola king in 1070. The same wall carries an inscription of the Western Chalukya Vikramaditya VI, recognised at Draksharama after 1118.

Bezwada inscription of Kulottunga I

c. 1111 CE

Tamil inscription of the 41st year of the Chola king Kulottunga I on a pillar in the verandah of the Mallesvara temple at Bezwada (Vijayawada), the same pillar that carries the Telugu verse inscription of the Eastern Chalukya Yuddhamalla. It gives Rajendra-Cholapuram as another name of Bezwada.

Padmakshi temple inscription of Prola II

1117 CE

A Kannada and Sanskrit inscription on a four-sided pillar in front of the Padmakshi temple, on a small hill at Hanamkonda. It is dated in Chalukya-Vikrama year 42, which F. Kielhorn calculated as 24 December 1117. It names the Western Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI as overlord, and his feudatory, the Kakatiya Prola, son of Beta, ruling at Anmakunda. It records a Jaina temple built on the hill by the wife of Prola's minister. When H. Krishna Sastri published it in 1908, it was the earliest known Kakatiya record.

Matedu inscription of Vemabola Malle-nayaka

1120 CE

Telugu inscriptions of 1120 on a stone pillar at Matedu. They record temples built by Malle-nayaka of the Vemabola family, a soldier of the Kakatiya Prola II under the Chalukya Vikramaditya VI. Their verse family history of a 'Pulinda' family says that his father Reva helped establish the Kakatiya kings.

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.

Gudur pillar inscriptions of the Viriyala family

c. 1124 CE

Undated Telugu verses on a pillar at Gudur near Jangaon, a pillar that also carries a Kannada record of 1124. They tell how the Viriyala chief Erra and the lady Kamasani restored the boy Beta, the Kakatiya chief, to his position. It is the only early account of the near-collapse of the Kakatiya family in the late tenth century.

Panugallu inscription of Mailamba

1124 CE

A Sanskrit and Telugu inscription of Saka 1046 (1124) at Panugallu near Nalgonda. It records that Mailamba, wife of a Kandur Choda king, gave an agrahara (Brahmin village) named Choda-Bhima-Narayana-pura to 108 Brahmans, for the welfare of her son Bhima. It names her three sons, Udayaditya, Bhima and Gokarna.

Kolanupaka pillar of Kumara Somesvara

1125 CE

A Kannada inscription on the four faces of a pillar at Kolanupaka, the old Kollipake. It is dated in Chalukya-Vikrama year 50 (24 March 1125 in P. B. Desai's reckoning). It was set up in the shrine of the Jaina goddess Ambika. It records a grant by Prince Somesvara, son of Vikramaditya VI and later king as Somesvara III, 'in his capital Kollipake'. It calls the pillar both the pillar of fame of his general Svamideva and the pillar of victory of the prince who defeated the lord of Trikalinga.

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.

Jedcherla inscription of Udayana Choda

1162 CE

Telugu inscription of 25 December 1162 at Jedcherla in the Mahbubnagar district, in which two customs officers of the Kandur Choda chief Udayana Choda grant the god of Kodur five Gokarna-Singa coins a month from the shop dues of the town.

Thousand Pillar Temple inscription of Rudradeva

1163 CE

A Telugu and Sanskrit inscription of January 1163 CE at the Thousand Pillar Temple in Hanamkonda. It records that Rudradeva consecrated the temple's three gods. It also tells of the wars by which he and his father Prola II made the Kakatiyas masters of Telangana.

Karimnagar inscription of Gangadhara

1171 CE

Telugu verse inscription of January 1171 on a pillar at Karimnagar. In it Gangadhara, a Brahmin from the Vengi country who served the Kakatiya chiefs Prola II and Rudradeva, lists the agrahara (Brahmin village), temples, tanks and gardens he founded. Among them are temples at Anumakonda and an image of Vishnu as the Buddha.

Mamillapalli inscription of Bhima and Gokarna

1178 CE

Sanskrit and Telugu inscription of Saka 1100 (1178) on a pillar at Mamillapalli near Achampet in the Mahbubnagar district. It records gifts of two villages to the god Narasimha by the Kandur Choda brothers Bhima and Gokarna, sons of Udayaditya. It is the latest record of the family that P. V. Parabrahma Sastry used to date its chiefs.

Amaravati pillar inscription of Keta II

c. 1182 CE

A Sanskrit and Telugu inscription dated in Saka 1104 (probably 1182–83) on a pillar of the Amaresvara temple at Amaravati. It records the grants made by the Kota chief Keta II, probably on the day he came to the throne: villages and lamps for the Buddha, and villages for Brahmans. A second inscription on the same pillar, of 1234, records a lamp given to the Buddha by Kota Bayyalamahadevi.

Warangal fort inscription of Rudradeva

c. 1183 CE

A broken Sanskrit inscription of Saka 1105 (1183–84) found inside Warangal fort. It records King Rudradeva's gift of the village of Modapalli and repeats verses of his Thousand Pillar Temple inscription. A short Telugu record of his brother Mahadeva comes from the same fort.

Pithapuram inscription of Prithvisvara

1186 CE

A Sanskrit and Telugu inscription of Saka 1108 (1186) on the pillar at the entrance of the Kunti-Madhava temple at Pithapuram. It records a village given to the temple by Jayambika, mother of the Velanati chief Prithvisvara. Its long family history in verse is the main source for the history of the Velanati Chodas.

Pithapuram inscription of Mallideva and Manma-Satya II

1195 CE

A Sanskrit and Telugu inscription of Saka 1117 (1195) on the Kunti-Madhava pillar at Pithapuram. In it the Kona chiefs Mallideva and Manma-Satya II grant the village of Odiyuru, near Draksharama, to the temple. It gives the family tree of the Haihaya chiefs of Konamandala and praises the Velanati queen Jayamamba.

Pillalamarri inscription of Recherla Nami-reddi

1202 CE

A Sanskrit and Telugu pillar inscription of March 1202 at Pillalamarri near Suryapet, in the reign of Ganapatideva. It records the Nameshvara temple and the tanks and lands that the general Nami-reddi of the Recherla family gave to it. It also gives the family tree of the Pillalamarri branch of the Recherla generals.

Kondaparti inscription of Malyala Chaunda

1203 CE

A Sanskrit inscription of April 1203 on a pillar at Kondaparti near Warangal. It records the temple of Chaundeshvara and the gift of a village by Malyala Chaunda, commander-in-chief of the young Kakatiya king Ganapatideva. It gives the family line of the Malyala generals. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry read it as the record of the Kakatiya conquest of the Divi island.

Arulala-Perumal inscription of Tammusiddhi, 1205–06

1205 CE

A Sanskrit inscription in Grantha letters on the base of the platform called 'the mountain' in the Arulala-Perumal (Varadaraja) temple at Kanchipuram. It records that in Saka 1127 (1205–06) the Telugu Choda king Tammusiddhi, having been anointed at Nellore, gave the village of Muttiyampakka to the god. It names his father's surname, Ganda-Gopala, and the place of his anointment.

Gunupadu inscription of Nallasiddha

c. 1205 CE

Tamil inscription on a pillar of the mandapa of the Puttanathasvami temple at Gunupadu, in the Gudur taluk of the Nellore district, dated in the 27th year of a Chola emperor Kulottunga, probably Kulottunga III. It records the gift of the village of Velur to the god at Tiruvengadam by the Telugu Choda chief Madhurantaka-Pottapi-Chola, alias Nallasiddha. A photograph of part of it was published in 1905.

Inugurti pillar inscription of Natavadi Rudra

c. 1206 CE

Sanskrit pillar inscription in Nagari script at Inugurti, dated in a Saka year read as 1128 (about 1206), in which the Natavadi chief Rudra, husband of Ganapatideva's sister Mailama, records three Shiva temples named after himself and his parents; with two shorter records of Mailama at the same village.

Kavali inscription of Tammusiddhi, 1207–08

1207 CE

Stone by the tank at Kavali in the Nellore district, in Sanskrit verse in Telugu letters, with the boundaries in Telugu. It records that in Saka 1129 (1207–08) the Telugu Choda king Tammusiddhi founded an agrahara (Brahmin village) named Sripura after his mother Sridevi and gave it to a hundred Brahmana shareholders. It calls his brother Nalla Siddha the eldest son and anointed king, by whose favour Tammusiddhi ruled.

Bayyaram tank inscription of Mailama

c. 1209 CE

An undated Sanskrit pillar inscription of the reign of Ganapatideva, at the great Bayyaram tank. His sister Mailama (Dharmakirti), wife of Natavadi Rudra, set it up. Found in 1965–66, it gives the only long family history of the Kakatiyas, from Venna of Kakati to Ganapati, and it changed the history of the family's origins.

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.

Palampet pillar inscription of Recherla Rudra

1213 CE

A Sanskrit verse inscription of 31 March 1213 on a basalt pillar at the Ramappa temple. It praises the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva and records the temples, town and gifts of his general Recherla Rudra.

Ganapavaram inscription of Devapala

1214 CE

A damaged Sanskrit pillar inscription of January 1214 at Ganapavaram in the Huzurnagar taluk. It records how Devapala founded the town of Ganapatipura and its Rudreshvara temple. Devapala's father had served the Paramara prince Jagaddeva, and Devapala was then taken into the service of the Kakatiya Prola II.

Warangal toll inscription of Ganapatideva

1228 CE

A damaged Telugu pillar inscription of July 1228 near the entrance to Warangal fort. It lists the dues that native and foreign merchants paid to the god Virabhadreshvara on dozens of goods, from areca nuts and salt to camphor, musk, silk and pearls. It is the fullest early record of trade and units of measure in the Kakatiya capital.

Ganapesvaram inscription of Jaya

1231 CE

A Sanskrit and Telugu inscription of April 1231 on Divi island in the Krishna delta. It records the Shiva temple that Ganapatideva's general Jaya (Jayapa) built and named Ganapeshvara after his king.

Upparapalli pillar inscription of Kataya

1236 CE

A Telugu verse and prose inscription of 24 January 1236 on a pillar at Upparapalli near Warangal. It records the temple gifts of Kataya, son of Recherla Rudra's Brahman minister Raje-nayaka, made with Ganapatideva's approval. It names Recherla Rudra's parents and Raje-nayaka's campaigns from Bhokkera to Daksharama.

Motupalli pillar inscription of Ganapatideva

1244 CE

Edict of Saka 1166 (1244–45 CE) set up at the port of Motupalli. In it the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva promised sea traders safety for wrecked cargoes and fixed the customs duty on their goods.

Pakhal lake inscription of Jagadala Mummadi

c. 1245 CE

Undated Sanskrit pillar inscription on the bund of the Pakhal lake, from the reign of Ganapatideva. It records that Jagadala Mummadi, son of the king's chief minister Bayyana-nayaka, built the great tank and a town called Ganapapura beside it. It also gives a solar family line of the Kakatiyas.

Rayaparti fragment of Saka 1169

1247 CE

A damaged Sanskrit verse inscription of Saka 1169 (1247) on a slab at Rayaparti, south-east of Warangal. It names a king Rudra who died, his successors Surya and Beta, a lady Suramba and a king Mahadeva. Its editors disagree about who these people were.

Ekamranatha temple inscription of Ganapati

1249 CE

A Sanskrit inscription in Grantha script of June 1249 on a wall of the Ekamranatha temple at Kanchipuram. It records a village given by Ganapati's minister and general Samanta-Bhoja, governor of Kanchi. It is evidence that the Kakatiya kingdom then reached the Tamil country.

Nayanapalle inscription of Ganapatideva

c. 1249 CE

An undated, damaged Telugu prose inscription of the 13th century at Nayanapalle, near Motupalli in the Bapatla country. It records that the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva, on a southern campaign, killed Bayyana and Tikkana, who had burnt Nellore. He also won over the Chola Kulottunga Rajendra-Choda and received elephants from the ruler of Nellore. Its editor dated it about 1249 and linked it with the literary story of how Ganapati restored the Telugu Choda king Manumasiddhi II.

Yenamadala inscription of Ganapamba

c. 1250 CE

A Sanskrit and Telugu inscription on a pillar at Yenamadala in the Guntur taluk. It was set up by Ganapamba, daughter of the Kakatiya Ganapatideva and widow of the Kota chief Beta. It records her temples to Siva, named after her husband and her father, and her gifts at Amaravati, and it gives the Kakatiya and Kota family lines. The date, Saumya (Saka 1172, 1249–50), survives only in a 19th-century copy and has been questioned.

Durgi inscription of Gangaya-sahini

c. 1251 CE

An inscription of Saka 1173 (1251–52) in the Vankesvara temple at Durgi in Palnadu. It records the temple founded by an agent of Gangaya-sahini, who governed the country from Panugallu to Marjavadi for the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva. It also records the village Gangaya-sahini gave the temple, and gives an account of the Kakatiya family.

Sarngapuram plates of Sarngadhara

1255 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of Saka 1176 (1254–55) from the Darsi division of the Nellore district. In 1926 it was the earliest Kakatiya copper-plate charter known. In it Sarngadhara, son of Ganapatideva's vassal Madhava of Addanki, gave the village of Sarngapuram to Brahmans for the merit of his master.

Bothpur tank inscription of Malyala Gunda

1259 CE

A Telugu and Sanskrit pillar inscription of 1259 at Bothpur in the Mahbubnagar district. It records the tanks, temples and Brahmin endowments of the general Malyala Gunda, who served Ganapatideva of Orugallu. The scholar-poet Ishvara-suri composed it. It is the record that places the Kakatiya dynasty in the fourth caste.

Garavapadu plates of Ganapatideva

1260 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of 12 April 1260. In it Tikka, a general and son of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva's minister Devaraja, gave the village of Garavapadu to fifty Brahmans. It traces the Kakatiyas to Karikala Chola and names Kakati as the place where the family began.

Malkapuram pillar inscription of Rudramadevi

1261 CE

A long Sanskrit inscription of 25 March 1261, cut on a huge pillar at Malkapuram near Amaravati. It records Rudramadevi's gift of Mandara to the royal teacher Visvesvara Sambhu of the Golaki matha. It also lists the temple, college, feeding-house, hospital and maternity home that he founded there.

Kotagiri plates of Viryala Sura

1273 CE

Three Sanskrit copper plates of 31 December 1273, found in a tank at Birkur in the Bodhan taluk. They record the gift of a new village, Vejjalapuri or Vainayakapuri, to Brahmans and a Vishnu temple by Sura of the Viryala family. Sura was a feudatory (subordinate ruler) in the reign of Rudramadevi, whom the plates call Ganapati's daughter.

Srikurmam inscriptions of the Chalukya chiefs

1273 CE

Four inscriptions of 1273 to 1318 on pillars of the Kurmesvara temple at Srikurmam. They were left by chiefs who claimed descent from the Eastern Chalukya kings Vimaladitya and Rajaraja Narendra, and who served the Eastern Ganga kings. The earliest calls the chief's father a minister of Narasimha I. It also says that Rajaraja Narendra, with scholars, translated the history of the Bharata race into Telugu. E. Hultzsch took this as a confirmation, from an inscription, of the tradition of Nannaya's Telugu Mahabharata.