Trade & economy

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Adil Shahis of Bijapur

c. 1489–1686 CE

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

Qutb Shahis

c. 1518–1687 CE

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

Dutch East India Company

c. 1613–1825 CE

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

Mughals in the Telugu country

1636–1724 CE

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

Marathas and the Telugu country

1677–1818 CE

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

Nawabs of the Carnatic (Arcot)

c. 1710–1801 CE

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

French East India Company

1750–1759 CE

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

East India Company

1759–1858 CE

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

Mysore under Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan

1761–1799 CE

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

British Crown (Madras Presidency)

1858–1947 CE

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

Siva Sri Satakarni

c. 170–177 CE

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

Yajna Sri Satakarni

c. 184–213 CE

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

Chandra Sri Satakarni

c. 219–229 CE

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

Saktivarman I

c. 999–1011 CE

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

Udaya Choda II of Kandur

c. 1136–1176 CE

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

Ganapatideva

c. 1199–1262 CE

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

Anavota Reddi

c. 1353–1364 CE

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

Kumaragiri Reddi

c. 1386–1402 CE

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

Abdullah Qutb Shah

1614–1672 CE

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

Joseph François Dupleix

1697–1764 CE

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

Muhammad Ali Khan Walajah

1749–1795 CE

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

Salabat Jang

1751–1761 CE

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

Haidar Ali

1761–1782 CE

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

Tipu Sultan

1782–1799 CE

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

Sir Arthur Cotton

1803–1899 CE

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

Kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao

1867–1938 CE

Founder of the Telugu paper Andhra Patrika and maker of the balm Amrutanjan (1867–1938), from Elakurru in Krishna district. He backed the non-cooperation movement through his paper, chaired a Madras meeting against the Simon Commission, and was jailed in the salt satyagraha of 1930 and the civil disobedience of 1932. He was elected to the Central Legislature in 1934.

Gobhada

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

Mahmud Gawan

before 1481 CE

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

Mir Jumla (Mir Muhammad Said Ardastani)

before 1663 CE

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

Samagopa

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

Adoni

Hill-fort town in the Kurnool district. It was a Vijayanagara stronghold, which Bijapur besieged in 1535–37 and took in 1568. Its Bijapur governor Siddi Masud Khan built the Jama Masjid in 1666–67. He held the last Bijapur stronghold in the western Telugu country, and gave it up to Aurangzeb's army after Bijapur fell. The Mughals renamed it Imtiyazgarh, 'Distinction Fort'. Under Farrukhsiyar and his successors it was a Mughal mint for small gold coins of the southern pattern. From 1756 it was the jagir (land grant) of Basalat Jang, the Nizam's brother. Tipu Sultan besieged it in 1786, took its guns when the garrison left, destroyed its walls, and gave it back at the peace of 1787. In 1800 the Nizam ceded it to the East India Company in exchange for his districts north of the Tungabhadra.

Banganapalle

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

Bheemunipatnam

Small port north of Visakhapatnam, at the mouth of the Chittivalasa river, known in old records as Bimlipatam. The Dutch East India Company built a fortified factory (trading post) and a mint here in the seventeenth century, under grants of the Rajas of Vizianagaram. The Marathas burnt it in 1754. The English took it in 1781 and 1795, gave it back to the Dutch in 1785 and 1819, and received it for good in 1825. Francis dates the tombstones of its Dutch cemetery from 1661 to 1720 and calls the 1661 tomb the oldest in the Northern Circars, but Rea reports stones dated 1623.

Bukkarayasamudram

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

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.

Eluru (Ellore)

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

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.

Golconda

Fortress and old royal town five miles west of Hyderabad. It was a Warangal frontier fort ceded to the Bahmanis in the 14th century, and then the first capital of the Qutb Shahi sultans. The court moved to Hyderabad in the 1590s, but the fortress remained their stronghold until 1687.

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.

Hyderabad

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

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.

Kakinada

Port on the Godavari coast, known to the English as Cocanada, which grew as Coringa silted up. Its southern suburb, Jagannathapuram, was a Dutch factory (trading post) with a mint from the seventeenth century until 1825. A French party that landed there in 1759 was forced to surrender in the Dutch fort. Cocanada was one of the first Collectorates of the Northern Circars in 1794.

Kalingapatnam

Seaport at the mouth of the Vamsadhara in the Srikakulam district, long supposed to be Kalinganagara, the capital of the Ganga kings of Kalinga. E. Hultzsch still thought so in 1895. But G. V. Ramamurti found no antiquities there fit for a capital, and he placed Kalinganagara at Mukhalingam instead.

Khammam

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

Kollur

Deserted diamond-mining site on the Krishna, in the west of the old Sattenapalle taluk (Guntur). Tavernier visited its 'Gani' or 'Coulour' mine under the Qutb Shahis, and his editor V. Ball identified that mine with Kollur. Tavernier found close on 60,000 people working there. He was told that the great diamond Mir Jumla gave the Mughal emperor came from it. By 1883 only ruins of extensive habitations remained.

Kotilingala

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

Machilipatnam

Port near the mouth of the Krishna, known to Europeans as Masulipatam and locally as Bandar. It was the main sea outlet of the Golconda kingdom, where the English, Dutch and French traded from the 17th century. Later it was the chief town of the Northern Circars and of Kistna district.

Motupalli

Coastal village, formerly in Guntur district, that was the main Kakatiya sea port. Ganapatideva set up his 1244 edict protecting sea traders here. Henry Yule identified it with a place Marco Polo called Mutfili.

Nalgonda

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

Nizamabad

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

Nizampatnam

Old port on the Guntur coast south of the Krishna mouths. The Fifth Report's tables identify it with the Pettipolee or Pettapoli of the English records. Here the Globe landed English merchants on 20 August 1611, the first English trade on the eastern coast of India. It was a minor factory (trading post) of the Company in the seventeenth century. It gave its name to the Nizampatam Circar, granted to the French in 1751 and to the English by Salabat Jang's treaty of 1759.

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.

Peddabankur

Village near Peddapalli in the old Karimnagar district, beside a 30-hectare early settlement dug for the Andhra Pradesh Department of Archaeology and Museums before 1978. The dig found brick enclosures and 22 wells, two hoards of silver punch-marked coins, Roman coins of Augustus and Tiberius with Satavahana coins, and coins of the local king Samagopa.

Tadpatri

Town on the south bank of the Penner in the Anantapur district. It was founded under Vijayanagara by Ramalinga Nayudu, whose family built its two richly carved temples of Ramalingesvara and Chintala Venkataramana. It passed to Muslim governors after 1565, to Morari Rao of Gooty and then to Haidar Ali. A Mughal-style pagoda (gold coin) was struck there. By the treaty of 1792 Tipu Sultan ceded the taluks of Tadpatri and Tadimarri to the Nizam, who ceded them to the East India Company in 1800.

Visakhapatnam

Port on the Vizagapatam coast, known to the English as Vizagapatam, where the East India Company founded a factory (trading post) in 1682. The factory was seized under Aurangzeb in 1689 and besieged by the Faujdar of Chicacole in 1710–11. It surrendered to Bussy in 1757, and the Raja of Vizianagaram gave it to the English in 1758. From 1769 it was the seat of a Chief and Council, and then of the Collector of the Vizagapatam district. Its old cemetery holds the graves of Chiefs of the settlement from 1705.

Yanam

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

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.

Ramappa Lake

1213 CE

The large reservoir at Palampet beside which the Ramappa (Rudreshvara) temple stands. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, following the temple's inscription of 1213, gives it to the Kakatiya general Recherla Rudra, who probably built it together with the temple. Hyderabad's Archaeological Department counted it among the great tanks of the Kakatiya rulers.

Husain Sagar

c. 1562 CE

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

Purana Pul

c. 1578 CE

The 'old bridge' of stone across the Musi at the western end of old Hyderabad, on the road to Golconda. Bilgrami (1927) dates it by two chronograms to AH 986 (1578), under Ibrahim Qutb Shah, fourteen years before the city. He gives its Qutb Shahi name as Pul-i Narva, from the Telugu word for a causeway. The Imperial Gazetteer and Campbell date it to 1593 under Muhammad Quli. Tavernier compared it with the Pont Neuf. Its only inscription records the rebuilding after the flood of 1820.

Dutch tombs, Machilipatnam

1624–1743 CE

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

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.

Mir Alam Tank

1806 CE

Large tank south-west of the old city of Hyderabad, held back by a dam of 21 semicircular granite arches 1,120 yards long. The minister Mir Alam built it out of his share of the prize money from Seringapatam (1799). It was completed in AH 1221 (1806), in the reign of Sikandar Jah, at a cost of eight lakhs. The Imperial Gazetteer says French engineers in the Nizam's service built the dam. An inscription on a reservoir stone records the date. Until the Osman Sagar was built it was a main source of the city's water.

Dowleswaram anicut

1847–1852 CE

The masonry dam across the Godavari at Dowleswaram, at the head of the delta. Arthur Cotton designed it, and it was built in 1847–52 in four sections joined by the river islands, about 4,000 yards long. Its crest was raised in 1862–67, and again, with self-acting iron shutters, in 1897–99. By 1903–04 its three canal systems watered 662,000 acres of the Godavari delta.

Krishna anicut

1852–1855 CE

The masonry dam across the Krishna at Vijayawada (then Bezwada), at the head of the delta, where the river passes through a gap 1,300 yards wide between two hills. Planned after the Guntur famine of 1832–1833 and sanctioned in 1850, it was built under Captain Orr from 1852 to 1855. In 1903–04 its canals watered over 600,000 acres of government land.

Osman Sagar (Gandipet)

c. 1912 CE

Reservoir formed by a dam across the Musi at Gandipet, about ten miles above Hyderabad. It was built after the terrible flood of September 1908, to protect the city from floods and to supply it with water. M. Visvesvaraya drew up the project. Mir Osman Ali Khan laid the foundation stone in 1322 Fasli (1912–13), and the lake was named after him. Mudiraj (1929) gives the cost as Rs 58,40,000. A sister dam on the Isi formed the Himayat Sagar, completed in 1924–25.

Himayat Sagar

1925 CE

Reservoir on the Isi (Esi), a tributary of the Musi, south-west of Hyderabad, built as the second part of the flood-protection scheme drawn up after the Musi flood of 1908. It was named after the heir-apparent, Himayat Ali Khan (Azam Jah), and completed in 1334 Fasli (1924–25) at a cost of Rs 92,43,255. Pictorial Hyderabad (1929) calls it both a flood moderator and an irrigation tank; a government farm at Himayat Sagar bred rice strains, cattle and poultry in the 1930s.

Nizam Sagar

c. 1931 CE

Dam and reservoir on the Manjra river in Nizamabad district, built in the reign of Mir Osman Ali Khan. Pictorial Hyderabad (1929) describes a dam 7,260 feet long and 111 feet high, then under construction; the census of 1931 records the scheme as just completed at a cost of 426 lakhs of rupees, with a main canal of 72½ miles meant to water 275,000 acres in the Bodhan, Nizamabad, Armur and Yellareddy taluks.

Bayyaram Tank

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

Laknavaram Lake

A large reservoir in the forests of the old Warangal district. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry counts it among the big tanks of the Kakatiya period, fed, like the Pakhal and Bayyaram tanks, by streams from one plateau. No builder or inscription is recorded for it in the sources used here.

Pakhal Lake

A great reservoir east of Narsampet, formed by a dam about a mile long across the Pakhal river and covering some 13 square miles when full. Local tradition recorded in 1900 gave it to Pratapa Rudra, or to a 'Raja Khaldya' sixteen centuries earlier. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, citing the inscription on the bund, gives it to Jagadalu Mummadi, son of a minister, in the reign of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva.

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.

Vilavatti grant of Simhavarman

c. 446 CE

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

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.

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.

Motupalli pillar inscription of Ganapatideva

1244 CE

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

Bukkarayasamudram tank inscription (1364)

1364 CE

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

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.