Religion & philosophy

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.

Kakatiyas

1163–1323 CE

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

Mauryas

c. 322 BCE – 184 BCE

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

Satavahanas

c. 200 BCE – 225 CE

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

Ikshvakus of Vijayapuri

c. 225–350 CE

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

Pallavas

c. 250–900 CE

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Velanati Chodas

c. 1076–1209 CE

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

Kotas of Dharanikota

c. 1100–1276 CE

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

Kakatiyas

c. 1163–1323 CE

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pampa (Adi Pampa)

902 CE

Kannada poet, born in 902 into a Brahmana family from the Vengi country that had become Jaina. At the court of the Chalukya king Arikesari II of Vemulavada he wrote the Adipurana and the Vikramarjunavijaya or 'Pampa Bharata' (941). In the second poem he made his patron the epic hero Arjuna. A rock inscription of his younger brother Jinavallabha on the Bommala Gutta at Kurikyal, near Karimnagar, gives his family and the village the king granted him.

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.

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.

Somadeva Suri

959–966 CE

Jaina scholar and Sanskrit author of the 10th century. He finished his prose-and-verse romance, the Yasastilaka, in 959 at Gangadhara, in the territory of Vagaraja, eldest son of the Chalukya king Arikesari II of Vemulavada. At that time the Rashtrakuta Krishna III was in camp at Melpati. In 966 Arikesari III gave him a village for the Subhadhama Jinalaya, a Jaina temple at Vemulavada.

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.

Beta I

c. 996–1051 CE

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

Beta II

c. 1076–1108 CE

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mahadeva

c. 1195–1199 CE

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

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.

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.

Vishveshvara Shambhu

c. 1250–1261 CE

Shaiva teacher of the Pashupata Golaki monastery, and preceptor (teacher) of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva and of Rudramadevi. Rudramadevi granted him the village of Mandadam on the Krishna in 1261. There he founded a monastery with a college, a feeding house and a maternity and health home. He also founded monasteries and temples elsewhere in the Telugu country.

Prolaya Nayaka

c. 1325–1336 CE

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

Prolaya Vema Reddi

c. 1325–1353 CE

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

Bukka I (Vijayanagara)

c. 1355–1377 CE

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

Anavema Reddi

c. 1364–1386 CE

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

Kataya Vema

c. 1386–1415 CE

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

Firuz Shah

1397–1422 CE

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

Bammera Potana

c. 1400–1475 CE

Telugu poet of the fifteenth century, author of the Telugu Bhagavata. Tradition links him with Sarvajna Singa, a Recherla Velama king of Rachakonda. It says he wrote the Bhoginidandakamu in praise of the king's mistress but refused to dedicate his Bhagavata to a mortal king. No inscription confirms the story.

Ahmad Shah I

1422–1435 CE

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

Muhammad Shah III

1463–1482 CE

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

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.

Krishnadeva Raya

1509–1529 CE

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

Venkatapati II (Vijayanagara)

1586–1614 CE

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

Sultan Muhammad Qutb Shah

1593–1626 CE

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

Shivaji

c. 1627–1680 CE

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

Abul Hasan Tana Shah

c. 1672–1699 CE

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

Maulvi Allauddin

c. 1857–1884 CE

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

Gora (Goparaju Ramachandra Rao)

1902–1975 CE

Teacher, social reformer and atheist of Vijayawada (1902–1975), known as Gora. A science lecturer until 1940, he was jailed in 1943 for celebrating Independence Day and detained twice during the Quit India movement. He worked against untouchability, encouraged his children to marry across caste, edited the Telugu weekly Sangham and the English monthly The Atheist, and wrote Positive Atheism.

Atharvana

Telugu grammarian of the Kakatiya period, author of the Trilinga Sabdanusasanamu, a grammar of Telugu written in Sanskrit. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao called him the only Jain writer in surviving Telugu literature, dated him about 1240 and thought his real name was Nallanna. A legend that Nannaya burnt his Telugu Mahabharata out of jealousy was rejected by them, because the two did not live at the same time.

Bandagi (Shaik Bandagi)

before 1942 CE

Muslim farmer of Kamareddygudem, near Devaruppala in Jangaon taluk, who for about ten years fought a land case backed by the deshmukh of Visnur and won it. He was murdered near the village bus stop, in 1942 according to Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao, whose communist history of the Telangana struggle retells an account published in 1945. His grave became a place of an annual urs attended by Hindus and Muslims.

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.

Brahma Nayudu

Hero of the Telugu ballad cycle of the Palnati Viralu (Heroes of Palnadu): the minister who led one side in the Palnadu war, fought out at Karempudi, and who is still honoured there as a form of Vishnu. He is known only from the ballads and the cult. No inscription names him, and the dates proposed for his war range from 1080 to 1386.

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.

Dhurjati

Telugu Shaiva poet of Srikalahasti, counted among the eight poets (Ashtadiggajas) of Krishnadeva Raya's court. He wrote the Kalahasti Mahatmyamu, a poem on the holy place of Srikalahasti, and the Kalahastisvara Satakamu, a set of devotional verses to its god. Stories about his loose living go back to a verse about the king's question on the sweetness of his style.

Kancherla Gopanna (Bhakta Ramadas)

A Telugu devotee of Rama, remembered as Ramadas. He was a revenue officer who spent government money on the Rama temple at Bhadrachalam on the Godavari and was imprisoned for it. In the legend, he was freed when Rama and Lakshmana paid his debt to the king. He is credited with the Dasarathi Sataka and with devotional songs. Writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries make him a nephew of Madanna and an officer of Abul Hasan Qutb Shah. The Godavari district gazetteer of 1907 places him about 1725 under the Nizams.

Madanna

before 1686 CE

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

Mangalagiri Anandakavi

Telugu poet of the 18th century, author of the Vedanta Rasayanamu, a life of Christ in four cantos written in classical Telugu verse. C. P. Brown called him a Roman Catholic and dated the poem about 1700; Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao put him about 1750 and doubted that he was a church member. Kandukuri Veeresalingam ranked him among the best poets of his century.

Nannaya

Telugu poet of the 11th century, the author of the earliest surviving Telugu literary work. He wrote the first parvas (books) of the Telugu Mahabharata at the request of the Eastern Chalukya king Rajaraja Narendra of Rajahmundry. A Telugu grammar in Sanskrit, the Andhra-sabda-chintamani, is traditionally said to be his, though later historians doubted it. A. C. Burnell placed him in the 12th century in 1878; the editors of the inscriptions and later historians place him under Rajaraja in the 11th.

Palkuriki Somanatha

Telugu Shaiva poet from Palakurthi near Warangal. He wrote the Basava Purana and the Panditaradhya Charitra in the dvipada metre, the founding works of Telugu Virashaiva literature. Historians disagree over whether he lived in the late twelfth century or under Prataparudra, the last Kakatiya king.

Pingali Ellanarya

Telugu poet of about 1602, author of the Tobhya Charitramu, also called the Sarvesvara Mahatmyamu, a poem in four cantos on a Christian subject. He wrote it for Tumma Rayapa Reddi, a minor chief in the Kondavidu country. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao say it was based on an account of the life of St Thomas kept in the patron's family.

Sarangu Timmana

Telugu poet of the late 16th century, author of the Vaijayanti Vilasamu, also called the Vipranarayana Charitramu, the story of a Vaishnava devotee tempted by two courtesan sisters. G. R. Subramiah Pantulu wrote in 1898 that Timmana called himself the karanam (accountant) of Golconda. C. P. Brown noted that it was printed with a commentary in 1849.

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.

Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk

before 1543 CE

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

Tallapaka Annamacharya

Telugu composer of devotional songs (sankirtanas) to the god Venkatesvara of Tirupati, the first of the Tallapaka family of temple poets. The Tirupati temple dated him 1408–1503 when it printed his songs in 1941. Temple records of 1530–1558, studied by S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, show his son Tirumalai Aiyangar as the temple's appointed singer, and his grandson setting up his image as a teacher.

Tarigonda Vengamamba

Telugu woman poet and devotee of Tarigonda, near Vayalpad in the old Kadapa district, who lived in the first half of the 19th century. She wrote the Venkatachala Mahatmyamu on the holy hill of Tirupati, the Rajayogasaramu and a Telugu couplet version of the Bhagavata. C. P. Brown noted in 1852 that she was living in 1840.

Tyagaraja

Telugu singer, poet and composer of Tiruvaiyaru in Thanjavur district, whose devotional songs (kritis and kirtanas) to Rama are sung all over South India. C. R. Day in 1891 dated him about 1820–1840 and H. A. Popley in 1921 about 1800–1850, while P. T. Raju placed him in the 18th century. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao called him the greatest gift of Thanjavur to Telugu literature.

Vavilikolanu Subbarao

Telugu scholar-poet of the early 20th century who translated Valmiki's Ramayana into Telugu verse line by line and dedicated it to Rama. K. Sitaramaiya records that he believed Ontimitta in Kadapa district was the birthplace of Bammera Potana, renovated the Rama temple there and founded a school of Rama devotees. He was one of the classical scholars criticised by Gidugu Ramamurti in the language quarrel.

Vemana

Telugu poet of short moral, religious and satirical verses, each ending with the refrain 'Viswad abhi rama vinara Vema'. His verses were the moral schoolbook of the Telugu country. Nothing certain is known of his life: C. P. Brown, who collected and translated the verses from 1824, heard that he lived about 1600, while Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao preferred the early 15th century.

Padmanabham

1794 CE

Village on the Chittivalasa river ten miles north-west of Bheemunipatnam, under a hill with a Vishnu temple. Here the Raja of Vizianagaram, Vijayarama Raju II, made his last stand against the East India Company on 10 July 1794. He was killed with some three hundred of his followers, most of them Rajputs. A small masonry memorial marks the spot where he fell.

Ahobilam

Village and temple of Narasimha on the Nallamalai hills in the Kurnool district, 'the most sacred Vaishnava shrine' of the district. Reddi records credit Prolaya Vema with a flight of steps there. Kataya Vema gave it villages named after Kumaragiri in 1410, and Errapragada dedicated his Narasimha Purana to its god.

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.

Amaravati & Dharanikota

Neighbouring sites on the south bank of the Krishna. The ramparts of Dharanikota are usually identified with ancient Dhanyakataka. The town of Amaravati is the site of the great Buddhist stupa and the Amaresvara temple.

Bhadrachalam

Temple town on the Godavari, held to be a place where Rama lived after the abduction of Sita. Its temple of Rama is linked with Kancherla Gopanna, remembered as Ramadas, who is said to have spent the revenue on the shrine and to have been imprisoned for it. The Kistna manual (1883) makes him a nephew of Madanna under the last Qutb Shahi king. The Godavari gazetteer (1907) places him about 1725, as an official of the Nizam.

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.

Bhimavaram (West Godavari)

Town in the western Godavari delta, headquarters of the Bhimavaram taluk. The taluk takes in the old village of Gunupudi with its Somesvara temple. M. Rama Rao (1964) counted the temple as Somarama, one of the five Pancharama shrines, and attributed it to the Eastern Chalukya king Chalukya-Bhima I. Not to be confused with Chalukya-Bhimavaram near Samalkot.

Biccavolu

Village on the Rajahmundry–Kakinada road, nine miles north of Ramachandrapuram, with six early stone temples of Shiva. A Mackenzie manuscript called it the capital of the early Eastern Chalukya kings, under the name Birudanka-Rayapuram. M. Rama Rao (1964) dated its temples to the reign of Gunaga Vijayaditya III.

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.

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.

Dhulikatta

Village on the Hussaini Vagu in the old Karimnagar district, beside an early walled town of 18 hectares. V. V. Krishna Sastry dug its south gate, a palace complex with a granary and a Buddhist stupa a kilometre to the north, which he dated from the late 3rd century BCE. Coins of the local king Samagopa and a silver portrait coin of the Satavahana king Sivasri Pulumavi were found here.

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.

Dowleswaram

Town on the Godavari, four and a half miles below Rajahmundry, at the head of the delta. Arthur Cotton's great anicut (dam) was built across the river here in 1847–52. In 1907 it was the headquarters of two Executive Engineers and of the Public Works workshops. It is a specially holy bathing place, the last point at which the Godavari flows undivided.

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.

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.

Ghantasala

Village west of Machilipatnam in the Krishna delta, site of a large brick Buddhist stupa excavated by A. Rea in 1892. Carved limestone slabs and inscribed pillars from it survive scattered through the village.

Gudivada

Taluk town in the Krishna delta, about twenty miles north-west of Machilipatnam. It has the remains of a demolished Buddhist stupa. An old village mound here has yielded large numbers of Satavahana (Andhra) lead coins, beads and pottery.

Hayathnagar

Village about nine miles east of Hyderabad on the old road to Masulipatam. Hayat Bakhsh Begum, mother of Abdullah Qutb Shah, founded it in AH 1035 (1625–26) as Hayatabad. Its great Qutb Shahi mosque stands inside a walled caravanserai (travellers' inn) of several hundred rooms. Tavernier's 'Jatenagar', the first stage on his road from Golconda to the Kollur diamond mine, has been identified with it.

Jaggayyapeta

Market town on the Paleru near where it meets the Krishna, formerly called Betavolu. On a hill nearby, James Burgess excavated in 1882 the remains of an early Buddhist stupa with an inscription of the Ikshvaku period.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lepakshi

Village nine miles east of Hindupur in the Anantapur district. It is known for the Virabhadra temple on the low Kurmasaila hill and for the colossal stone bull near it. Virupanna of Penukonda built the temple in the reign of Achyuta Raya. The temple's inscriptions of 1533–1538 place Lepakshi in Rodda-nadu, a subdivision of the Penukonda province.

Mahendragiri

Mountain in the Eastern Ghats in southern Odisha. It is the Mahendra mountain of the Eastern Ganga grants, and on its summit the kings worshipped the god Gokarnasvamin. Old temples of large granite blocks stand on the top, and an inscription there records a Chola pillar of victory.

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.

Medak

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

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.

Nagarjunakonda

Hill and enclosed valley on the right bank of the Krishna in Palnad taluk, Guntur district. It is the site of Vijayapuri, capital of the Ikshvakus in the 3rd and early 4th centuries CE. A. H. Longhurst excavated its Buddhist monuments in 1927–31. The Archaeological Survey excavated the whole valley in 1954–60, before the Nagarjunasagar dam was to submerge it.

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.

Palakollu

Market town in the western Godavari delta, six miles north of Narasapur. It is known as Kshirarama for its Shiva temple, one of the five Pancharama shrines. It was the first Dutch settlement on this coast, founded in the mid-17th century, and passed finally to the British in 1825.

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.

Siddhavatam (Sidhout)

Fortified town on the Penner below Cuddapah, called Dakshina Kasi, 'the southern Benares'. The Matla chiefs of Chitvel built the first fort. Under the Nawabs of Cuddapah it was the jagir (land grant) of a branch of their family, and a state prison. The last Nawab, Abd-ul-Halim Khan, surrendered to Haidar Ali there on 27 May 1779 (local and later accounts give 1778 and 1780). Tipu's diwan of Cuddapah stored lead there. The taluk went to the Nizam in 1792 and to the Company in 1800, and Sidhout was for a time the Collector's residence after 1807.

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.

Srikalahasti

Temple town on the right bank of the Swarnamukhi at the end of the Nagari hills, in the old North Arcot (later Chittoor) district. It was the seat of the Kalahasti zamindars. Its Siva temple of the wind linga was extended by the Cholas. By an inscription of 1516, it received a hundred-pillared hall and its great gopura (gateway tower) from Krishnadeva Raya. The North Arcot manual took the zamindars to have begun as officers of the Vijayanagara kings.

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.

Srisailam

Temple town of Siva as Mallikarjuna, on the northernmost plateau of the Nallamalai hills, above the gorge of the Krishna in the Kurnool district. The Reddi kings of Kondavidu claimed the country 'from Srisailam to the eastern sea'. Their inscriptions credit Prolaya Vema with a flight of steps from the Patalaganga to the shrine, and Anavema built a hall there in 1378. Shivaji spent about ten days at the shrine in March 1677, on his way from Hyderabad to the Karnatak.

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.

Tirupati and Tirumala

Pilgrim town at the foot of the Tirumala hills in the old North Arcot (later Chittoor) district, and the hill town of Tirumala above it. Tirumala has the temple of Venkatesvara, which James Fergusson's revisers called the most sacred in the Madras Presidency. Krishnadeva Raya visited it after his eastern wars, gave it jewels and set up copper statues of himself and his queens. The later Aravidu kings made their grants before its god and lived at Chandragiri, in sight of the hill.

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.

Undavalli

Village on the south bank of the Krishna opposite Vijayawada (Bezwada), in Guntur district. It is known for its large rock-cut temple of several storeys with a colossal reclining Vishnu. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil attributed the caves to the Vishnukundins. A. H. Longhurst thought them Pallava work of the early 7th century.

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.

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.

Vilasa

Village of the Konasima, the Godavari delta between the Vasishtha and Gautami branches, a few miles from Amalapuram. The Musunuri chief Prolaya Nayaka granted it to the scholar Vennaya in about 1330. Vennaya renamed it Prolavaram after the king.

Amaravati Mahachaitya

c. 200 BCE – 300 CE

The great Buddhist stupa of Amaravati on the Krishna, founded perhaps around 200 BCE and rebuilt with carved limestone rails in the 2nd–3rd centuries CE. From 1796 it was dug up for building material, and it is now known mainly from its scattered sculptures.

Bhattiprolu stupa

c. 200 BCE

Large brick Buddhist stupa in the Krishna delta, about 148 feet across at its base. Most of it was pulled down for road material and canal works in the 1870s. In 1892 A. Rea found three inscribed relic caskets of about 200 BCE in its core.

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.

Ghantasala stupa

c. 200 CE

Brick Buddhist stupa at Ghantasala in the Krishna delta, excavated by A. Rea in 1892. Its foundations show a solid core inside a ring of radiating cells. Rea dated it a little after the later work at Amaravati.

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.

Temples of Nagunur

c. 1171 CE

Ruined temples at Nagunur, six miles north-east of Karimnagar. The chief one is a large triple-shrined Shiva temple of red stone and granite. Nagunur was the seat of Gangadhara, a minister of the Kakatiya king Rudradeva. According to P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, Gangadhara built Shiva temples there. An inscribed pillar said to come from Nagunur is dated 13 January 1171, in Rudradeva's time.

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.

Choundesvara Temple, Kondaparti

1203 CE

A temple of Choundesvara and a tank, the Chaunda-samudra, at Kondaparti near Warangal. Both were built by Chaunda of the Malyala family, a general of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva. His inscription there of 1203 records his part in Ganapatideva's conquest of the Divi island.

Ghanpur Temples (Kota Gullu)

c. 1213 CE

A walled group of twenty-two sandstone shrines at Ghanpur near Mulug, eight miles from Palampet. The main temple follows the plan of the Ramappa temple and has black-stone bracket figures like those at Palampet. Hyderabad's Archaeological Department made the group known in 1932–33. It found no inscription and dated it by its style to the time of the Palampet temples. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry gave it to the Kakatiya general Recherla Rudra.

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.

Kalahastisvara temple, Srikalahasti

1516 CE

Siva temple of the wind linga at the foot of the southern hill of Srikalahasti. It has Chola inscriptions, and a hundred-pillared hall and great gopura (gate tower) that a Telugu inscription of 1516 credits to Krishnadeva Raya. The North Arcot manual says the Chola kings and Krishnadeva Rayalu extended it. Fergusson's revisers list its wind linga among the Pancha-lingams, the five notable symbols of Siva in southern India.

Virabhadra temple, Lepakshi

1538 CE

Temple of Virabhadra on a low rocky hill at Lepakshi in the Anantapur district. It has a double enclosure with a pillared cloister, an unfinished kalyana-mandapa (wedding hall) and a great hall of some sixty carved pillars, whose ceiling is covered with paintings of the epics and Puranas. An inscription by the main entrance dates its building to 1538. Its records of 1533–1538, in the reign of Achyuta Raya, name its builder Virupanna of Penukonda. Local tradition makes him a treasurer of Krishnadeva Raya who blinded himself at the king's order. A colossal bull carved from one stone lies near it.

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.

Charminar

c. 1591 CE

Gateway monument with four minarets at the centre of old Hyderabad. Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah built it when he founded the city. The Imperial Gazetteer dates it to 1591, and Bilgrami to AH 999–1000 (1590–91).

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.

Khairatabad Mosque

c. 1612–1626 CE

Small three-arched Qutb Shahi mosque at Khairatabad, Hyderabad, with an empty domed tomb beside it, after which the suburb is named. Neither building has an inscription. Bilgrami (1927), from a sanad (deed) of Aurangzeb's 37th year, says that Khairiyat-un-Nisa Begum, daughter of Sultan Muhammad Qutb Shah, built the mosque for her tutor Mulla Abdul Malik. He dates it between 1612 and 1626. Campbell (1898), Rocco (1929) and Syed Hossein Bilgrami (1905) make its builder Khairat-un-Nisa, a daughter of Ibrahim Qutb Shah.

Mecca Masjid

c. 1617–1693 CE

Great stone mosque near the Charminar in Hyderabad. Sultan Muhammad Qutb Shah began it in 1617, his successors continued it, and it was completed under Aurangzeb in the 1690s. The Asaf Jahi Nizams from Nizam Ali Khan onwards are buried in its courtyard.

Hayat Bakhshi Mosque, Hayathnagar

c. 1626 CE

Large Qutb Shahi mosque of five double arches between two tall minarets. It stands on a terrace inside a vast walled caravanserai (travellers' inn) at Hayathnagar, about nine miles east of Hyderabad. The village was founded in AH 1035 (1625–26) by Hayat Bakhsh Begum, daughter of Muhammad Quli, queen of Sultan Muhammad and mother of Abdullah Qutb Shah. The mosque has no inscription. Bilgrami dated the village to 1626 and the mosque to Abdullah's reign.

Taramati Baradari and Premamati Mosque

c. 1662 CE

A pavilion (baradari) on three terraces south of the Osman Sagar road near Golconda, and an unfinished mosque on a rock north of the road. Tradition links them with Tara Mati and Pema Mati, Hindu consorts of the Qutb Shahi kings. Neither building has an inscription. The only dated record of either woman is the grave of Pemmati at the Qutb Shahi tombs, AH 1073 (1662). The sources disagree on which kings the two women belonged to.

Jama Masjid, Adoni

1667 CE

The congregational (Friday) mosque of Adoni, built by the Bijapur governor Siddi Masud Khan. Persian verses on black stone slabs in its front give the date of completion as AH 1079 (1666–67). The Bellary gazetteer called it the finest piece of Muhammadan architecture in the district. Local tradition says that its pillars were taken from a Chalukyan temple, and that Masud surrendered Adoni to the Mughals to save it from their guns.

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.

Bhairavakonda cave temples

Group of early rock-cut cave temples at Bhairavakonda in the old Udayagiri taluk of the Nellore district, reported by A. H. Longhurst in 1921. R. Gopalan described them as attributable to the Pallava age and closely resembling the caves of Mahendravarman I; the Madras epigraphy office linked one shrine, named Damodaresvaram in an archaic inscription, with the Ananda king Damodaravarman.

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.

Chula-Dhammagiri monastery

Buddhist monastery buildings on the hill of Naharallabodu at Nagarjunakonda. It is identified with the monastery on the Lesser Dhammagiri east of Vijayapuri. There the lay woman Bodhisiri built an apsidal (round-ended) shrine for monks from Sri Lanka in the 14th year of the Ikshvaku king Virapurushadatta.

Dar-ush-Shifa

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

Golingesvara and the temples of Biccavolu

Six small stone temples of Shiva at Biccavolu in the Godavari delta. The Golingesvara, Rajarajesvara and Chandrasekhara temples stand in a compound in the village, and three more stand in the fields outside. M. Rama Rao (1964) placed them in the reign of Gunaga Vijayaditya III. His reasons were that an inscription calls the Golingesvara god Bijayesvara, and that one doorway shows the river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna.

Katakshapur Temples

Two ruined granite Shiva temples on the southern bund of the Katakshapur (Katachpur) tank, beside the Warangal–Mulug road. Hyderabad's Archaeological Department surveyed them in 1935–36. It found no inscription, but judged from their plan and workmanship that they were of the same age as the Palampet, Ghanpur and Thousand Pillar temples.

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.

Mailaradeva Temple, Inavolu

The temple of Mailaradeva at Inavolu (Ainavolu) near Warangal, with a star-shaped pillared hall and stone gateways in its walled court. S. Gopalakrishna Murthy, in 1964, recorded the local tradition that the Kakatiya king Rudradeva built the main temple. He suggested that one of Ganapatideva's generals added the hall, and saw its gateways as forerunners of the great toranas (arched gateways) of Warangal fort.

Nagarjunakonda Mahachaitya

The Great Stupa of the Ikshvaku city of Vijayapuri. Its limestone ayaka pillars carry Prakrit inscriptions of the princess Chamtisiri and other royal women, dated in the 6th year of King Virapurushadatta. A small bone relic was found in one of its chambers during the 1928–29 excavations.

Narasimha temples, Ahobilam

The temples of Narasimha at Lower (Diguva) and Upper Ahobilam, in the Nallamalai hills of the Kurnool district. Lower Ahobilam has a large unfinished mandapa (pillared hall). Fergusson's revisers compared its plan with the Vitthala temple at Vijayanagara but its style with Nayak work, and rejected a local tradition that gave it to Prataparudra about 1300. Inscriptions of Achyuta Raya, Sadasiva, Sriranga I and Venkatapati record halls, a pillar of victory and a Garuda pillar. They also record how the temple was recovered after the Golconda king had occupied it for seven years.

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.

Somesvara temple, Somarama (Bhimavaram)

Two-storeyed Shiva temple at Gunupudi, now Somaram in the town of Bhimavaram in the western Godavari delta. M. Rama Rao (1964) counted it among the five Pancharama shrines and gave it to the Eastern Chalukya king Chalukya-Bhima I. Robert Sewell recorded it in 1882 as a very old temple of Somesvara, said to be one of the five aramas. The Godavari gazetteer of 1907 left it out of its list of the five.

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.

Undavalli cave temple

Four-storeyed rock-cut temple on the south bank of the Krishna opposite Vijayawada. Medieval inscriptions call it Anantashayanagudi, after its huge image of Vishnu lying on the serpent. No inscription records who cut it. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil (1917, 1920) gave it and the caves of Bezwada, Mogalrajapuram and Sitanagaram to the Vishnukundins. A. H. Longhurst (1924) judged it a Pallava monument of the time of Mahendravarman I.

Venkatesvara temple, Tirumala

Temple of Venkatesvara (Srinivasa-Perumal) on the Tirumala hill above Tirupati. Its walls carry inscriptions of Krishnadeva Raya of 1514 and of his queens of 1512–13. It keeps copper statues of the king and his queens Chinnadevi and Tirumaladevi, which the Telugu Rayavachakamu says he set up before the god, and a labelled copper statue of Venkatapati. Fergusson's revisers thought the temple itself 'a fair specimen of a Dravidian temple of the second class'.

Vijayapuri citadel

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

Erragudi edicts of Asoka

c. 250 BCE

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

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.

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.

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.

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'.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nellore inscription of Sundara Pandya

c. 1276 CE

Tamil inscription on the western wall of the Ranganayakaswami temple at Nellore, recording that 'the emperor of the three worlds, the unequalled among kings, Sundara Pandyadeva', at the request of Kalingarayar, gave the village of Mavadikundai in Mundanadu for offerings in a hall named after him and for the worship of the god Pallikondaperumal. The regnal year is lost. The Nellore gazetteer of 1942 identified the king with a Jatavarman Sundara Pandya who came to the throne in 1276 and was crowned at Nellore.

Srikurmam inscription of Naraharitirtha

1281 CE

A Sanskrit inscription in Telugu letters on a black granite pillar of the Kurmesvara temple at Srikurmam, dated Saka 1203 (1281). It names the Madhva teachers Purushottama, Anandatirtha and Naraharitirtha. It says that Naraharitirtha defended Srikurmam against the Savaras and built a shrine of Yogananda-Narasimha there. It suggests that he governed the Kalinga country under the Eastern Ganga kings. H. Krishna Sastri used it and Naraharitirtha's other records to date the philosopher Madhva.

Vilasa grant of Prolaya Nayaka

c. 1330 CE

A Sanskrit copper-plate charter of about 1330, in Telugu script. In it the Musunuri chief Prolaya Nayaka gives the village of Vilasa in the Kona country, on the Godavari, to the scholar Vennaya. Its opening is the only account from the Telugu country, written at the time, of Prataparudra's death on the way to Delhi. It also tells of the Delhi occupation, of Prolaya's war to free the land and of his capital at Rekapalli.

Pillalamarri inscription of the reign of Kapaya Nayaka

1357 CE

A Telugu inscription of 1357 at Pillalamarri, near Suryapet. In it Era-Potu-lemka, servant of Kapaya Nayaka, 'lord of the Andhra country' and lord of the city of Anumanamgallu, records that he set up again the image of the god Erakesvara. 'Sultan Alavadin' had damaged the image in the disturbances of the time. Era-Potu-lemka also gives land for its offerings.

Kandikonda inscription of Venna (1375)

1375 CE

An inscription of August 1375 at Kandikonda (Skandadri) near Mahabubabad. It records that Venna, son of the Recherla chief Mada Nayaka of Devarakonda, built a temple of Janardana and gave it land. It gives the family's descent from Dacha. It says that Venna came from Devarakonda to rule Skandadri at his father's order.

Pedapalakaluru plates of Anavema (1378)

1378 CE

Four copper plates of 4 December 1378, found at Pedapalakaluru near Guntur in 1954 and now in the Andhra Pradesh State Museum, Hyderabad. They record Anavema Reddi's gift of the village to the scholar Ahobala Pandita and eight other Brahmans. Half of the 212 lines describe the village boundaries in Telugu. The family history in the grant credits Prolaya Vema with flights of steps at Srisailam and Ahobilam.

Gajapati inscriptions at Srikurmam (1452–1503)

1452–1503 CE

Short Telugu records on the black stone pillars of the Srikurmam temple. They are dated in the reigns of the Gajapati kings Kapilendra (1452, 1455, 1460), Purushottama (1470–1495) and Prataparudra (1503), and record gifts of land, lamps, images and silver vessels. They were copied in 1896 and printed in South-Indian Inscriptions V (1925). Monmohan Chakravarti and R. D. Banerji used them to fix the regnal years of the kings, and V. Rangacharya used them to argue that the kings came to the throne earlier.

Rachakonda mosque inscription

1484 CE

An Arabic inscription of AH 889 (1484), in the reign of the Bahmani king Mahmud Shah, recording the building of a mosque at Rachakonda by Malik An-Ni'mat, son of Mubarak. G. Yazdani, who translated it, took Malik An-Ni'mat to be the Bahmani governor and the mosque to have been a Hindu temple. Rachakonda had earlier been held by the rayas (chiefs) of Rajkonda, who paid tribute to Ahmad Shah I.

Potavaram grant of Purushottama (1489)

1489 CE

A copper-plate grant known only from lithographs (printed copies) and a translation by Ram Raz, published in Madras in 1827, and edited again by L. D. Barnett in 1916. By it the Gajapati Purushottama gave the village of Potavaram, in the district of Ammanabrolu, to the god Siva of Chadaluvada, in the present Ongole country. The gift was made in Kartika of Saka 1412 (1489). Barnett read it as evidence that by 1489 Purushottama had won back much of the Telugu country lost to the Bahmani sultan Muhammad Shah.

Tirumala inscriptions of Krishnadeva Raya and his queens (1513–1514)

1513–1514 CE

Telugu, Kannada and Tamil inscriptions on the walls of the first and second enclosures of the Venkatesvara temple on the Tirumala hill. Two of Saka 1434 (1512–13) record gifts by Krishnadeva Raya's queens Chimnaji Amma and Tirumalamma. Four of Saka 1436 (1514–15) are in three languages, and one of them mentions his attack on Prataparudra Gajapati, his pursuit of him to Kondavidu and his capture of Udayagiri. The temple also keeps the copper statues of the king and his two queens, which the Telugu Rayavachakamu says he set up before the god.

Amaravati inscription of Krishnadeva Raya (1515)

1515 CE

A Sanskrit verse inscription in Telugu letters on a slab in the Amaresvara temple at Amaravati, edited by H. Luders in 1903. It praises Krishnadeva Raya as the conqueror of Sivanasamudram, Udayagiri, Vinukonda and Bellamkonda, who took Kondavidu after capturing the Gajapati's son Virabhadra alive. It records that in Saka 1437 (1515) the king performed the tulapurusha gift (giving away his weight in gold) and gave agraharas (Brahmin villages) before the god Amaresa on the bank of the Krishna. It was the first inscription found to describe his eastern campaign.

Mangalagiri and Kaza pillar inscriptions (1515–1518)

1515–1518 CE

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

Simhachalam inscriptions of Krishnadeva Raya (1516–1519)

1516–1519 CE

Three Telugu inscriptions of Krishnadeva Raya in the Varaha-Narasimha temple at Simhachalam near Visakhapatnam. They are on the base of the asthana-mandapa (audience hall) and on a round pillar of the verandah round the central shrine. They are dated Saka 1438 (1516) and 1441 (1519). They record that the king, after subduing Udayagiri, Kondavidu, Kondapalli and Rajahmundry on his 'first campaign', came to Simhadri. For the merit of his parents he gave the god a necklace of 991 pearls and other jewels. His queens Chinnadevi and Tirumaladevi also made gifts, and later the king gave several villages.

Srikalahasti inscription of Krishnadeva Raya (1516)

1516 CE

A Telugu inscription on the west wall of the second enclosure of the Kalahastisvara temple at Srikalahasti. It is dated Saka 1438, Dhatri (1516), in the reign of Krishnadeva Raya. As V. Rangacharya summarised it in 1919, it refers to the king's conquests, his visit to Kalahasti and his building of the hundred-pillared mandapa (hall) and the big gopura (gate tower) of the temple. The Telugu Rayavachakamu instead dates the king's grants at Kalahasti to the cyclic year Srimukha.

Jami Masjid inscription, Golconda fort

1518 CE

An inscription of AH 924 (1518) over the doorway of the congregational mosque (Masjid Safa) in Golconda fort. It records that Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk built the mosque in the reign of the Bahmani king Mahmud Shah, son of Muhammad Shah. Syed Ali Asgar Bilgrami used it to argue that Sultan Quli stayed loyal to the Bahmanis until 1518, and became independent only after Mahmud Shah's death.

Kondavidu pillar inscription of Nadindla Gopa (1520)

1520 CE

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

Lepakshi temple inscriptions of Achyuta Raya's reign (1533–1538)

1533–1538 CE

Some fifteen Sanskrit and Kannada inscriptions on the walls of the Virabhadra temple at Lepakshi in the Anantapur district. They were copied in 1912 and are dated between Saka 1455 and 1460 (1533–1538), in the reign of Achyuta Raya. They record gifts of villages, tolls and lands to the shrines of Virabhadra (Viresvara), Papavinasa and Raghunatha. The givers were Virupanna (Virappannayya) of Penukonda and his brother Virana Nayaka, sons of Nandi Lakkisetti of Lepakshi, and the king himself. Local tradition makes Virupanna a treasurer of Krishnadeva Raya.

Epitaph of Sultan Quli, Golconda (1543)

1543 CE

Inscriptions in three bands on the black basalt tomb-chest of Sultan Quli, in the Qutb Shahi burial ground at Golconda. An epitaph at its foot calls him 'the Martyr' and 'Bara Malik'. It dates his death to Monday, 2 Jumada II AH 950 (3 September 1543 in T. W. Haig's conversion). Haig noted that the epitaph gives him no royal title. Bilgrami read the word 'Martyr' as confirming that he was murdered at prayer.

Kanuma grant of Sadasiva (1548)

1548 CE

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

Ahobilam inscription of Sriranga I (1584)

1584 CE

A Telugu inscription on a slab at the Narasimha temple in Lower Ahobilam, Kurnool district. It is dated Saka 1506 (1584), in the reign of Sriranga I, 'ruling at Penugonda'. V. Rangacharya summarised it in 1919. It grants rights in the temple to the chief Venkataraja, because his grandfather had driven out 'Vibhuramu', the Golconda king Ibrahim. Ibrahim had occupied the temple for seven years, in alliance with the Hande chiefs. A companion slab of 1585, of Venkatapati, records the same chief's gift to the temple.

Jami Masjid inscription, Hyderabad

1597 CE

A Persian verse inscription of AH 1006 (1597) over the door of the Jami Masjid near the Charminar. The mosque was built in the reign of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah under the minister Aminu-l-Mulk, and the inscription is signed by the calligrapher Baba Khan.

Epitaph of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, Golconda (1612)

1612 CE

A Persian epitaph in Naskh script on the black basalt sarcophagus (stone coffin) of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, founder of Hyderabad, in the Qutb Shahi necropolis at Golconda. It dates his death to Saturday, 17 Zi'l-Qa'da AH 1020, and gives his age as 49 years and his reign as 31 years. Bilgrami converted the date to 11 January 1612, and T. W. Haig to 24 January 1612.

Toli Masjid inscription (1671)

1671 CE

A Persian verse inscription in the prayer niche of the Toli Masjid, Hyderabad. It records that Musa Khan built the mosque and that it was completed in the reign of Abdullah Qutb Shah. Its chronogram (a phrase whose letters give the date) gives AH 1082 (1671). G. Yazdani edited it in 1921, in Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica for 1917–18, and Bilgrami again in 1927. A second slab in the courtyard, of AH 1043 (1633), belongs to another mosque.

Kali Masjid inscription of Rustam Dil Khan (1702)

c. 1702 CE

A Persian building inscription on black basalt over the central arch of the Kali Masjid, outside the Yaqutpura gate of Hyderabad. It names the Mughal governor Rustam Dil Khan as founder of the mosque. It gives the date AH 1114 (1702) and the name of the writer, Muhammad Ali Husaini. S. A. A. Bilgrami published it in 1927. The graves of Rustam Dil Khan and of his father, the governor Jan Sipar Khan, are close by.

British Museum grant of Charudevi

A Prakrit copper-plate grant of the Pallava queen Charudevi, wife of the crown prince Vijaya-Buddhavarman, made in the reign of the Maharaja Vijaya-Skandavarman. It gives four nivartanas of land to the temple of Narayana at Dalura. Sir Walter Elliot secured the plates, which are now in the British Museum. They were reported to have been found near Guntur. J. F. Fleet first edited them in 1880, and E. Hultzsch edited them again in 1906.

Chikkulla plates of Vikramendravarman II

A Vishnukundin copper-plate grant, issued from Lendulura in the king's 10th regnal year, giving the village of Regonram near the Krishna to a Shiva temple. It was found in a tank at Chikkulla near Tuni, and F. Kielhorn edited it in 1897. Its date depends on the disputed Vishnukundin chronology.

Ipur plates (set I) of Govindavarman's son Madhavavarman

Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Vishnukundin king Madhavavarman, son of Govindavarman. He issued it from his camp at Kudavada in his 37th year, giving the village of Vilembali in the Guddadi district to a Brahmin. It is one of two Vishnukundin sets found at Ipur in Tenali taluk, and E. Hultzsch edited it in 1924. Whether its king is the great Madhavavarman I or a later Madhavavarman III is disputed.

Ipur plates (set II) of Madhavavarman II

A damaged Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Vishnukundin king Madhavavarman II, son of Devavarman and grandson of Madhavavarman I, issued from [Ama]rapura. It calls the king lord of the Trikuta and Malaya mountains. It was found at Ipur in Tenali taluk, and E. Hultzsch edited it in 1924. It is in the most archaic script of all the Vishnukundin grants, and its regnal year has been read as 47, 37 and 17.

Kanteru plates of the Salankayanas

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

Kanukollu plates of Skandavarman

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the first year of the Salankayana king Skandavarman, issued from Vengi. It was found at Kanukollu with a Prakrit grant of Nandivarman I. Its four-generation family line, published in 1960, showed that Skandavarman was a great-grandson of Hastivarman I through a second son of Nandivarman I.

Pikira grant of Simhavarman

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

Ramatirtham plates of Indravarman

Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Vishnukundin king Indravarman (Indrabhattarakavarman), issued from Puranisangama in his 27th year. It gives the village of Peruvataka in the Plaki district to a Brahmin. A family of pandits at Ramatirtham near Vizianagaram held it. It was noticed in 1909, and E. Hultzsch edited it in 1914. Its short family line confirmed the line of the Chikkulla plates and the Vishnukundin marriage with the Vakatakas.

Uruvupalli grant of Vishnugopavarman

A Sanskrit copper-plate grant of the Pallava crown prince Vishnugopavarman, issued from Palakkada in the 11th year of a king Simhavarman. It gives two hundred nivartanas of land in the village of Uruvupalli, in the country of Munda, to a temple at Kandukura. J. F. Fleet published it in 1876 from Sir Walter Elliot's facsimiles. Its findspot is unknown.

Velpuru pillar inscription of Madhavavarman

A Sanskrit inscription on a white marble pillar in the Ramalingasvamin temple at Velpuru, in the former Sattenapalle taluk of Guntur district. It names a Vishnukundin king Madhavavarman. Noticed in 1925, it is the only known stone inscription of the dynasty. Only the exposed part has been copied, because the pillar could not be removed from the temple.