Water works in Telugu history

In the Telugu country, farming away from the deltas depended on stored water.¹² People built tanks (reservoirs held back by an earth bank across a valley) to catch the monsoon rain.³⁴ In the nineteenth century the British built great dams, called anicuts, across the rivers at the heads of the deltas.⁵⁶ This page follows these works through time and links to the pages on each one.

About the sources. For the Kakatiya tanks this page follows P. V. Parabrahma Sastry’s The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), which rests on the inscriptions and is cited, not quoted.⁷ For later works it uses the Imperial Gazetteers of 1908 and 1909, written by officials of the governments that built or kept up many of these works.⁵⁸ For why tanks mattered, see Land, rivers and water.

Rivers and water works

Unified Andhra Pradesh (pre-2014)
Present-day state borders, for orientation
Canal

The great rivers of the Telugu country with the holy places, crossings and water works the gazetteers of about 1900 describe: the pushkaram town of Rajahmundry and the pilgrim places of Bhadrachalam and Kotipalli on the Godavari; the anicuts at Dowleswaram (1847–1852) and Vijayawada (1852–1855); the Kakatiya tanks of Pakhal, Ramappa, Laknavaram, Bayyaram and Ghanpur; the Vijayanagara-period tanks of Bukkarayasamudram and Porumamilla; the Cumbum tank; the Kurnool–Cuddapah canal; and Kolleru lake. The canal's course is approximate.

Base map: Natural Earth (opens in a new tab) (public domain).

Why tanks

The Hyderabad gazetteer of 1909 explains the need.¹ The soils of Telingana, formed from granite, are sandy and do not hold water.¹⁹ Their rivers run dry in the hot season.¹ So the rain had to be stored, and the people used the rolling ground to do it.⁹ Dams were thrown across valleys and streams to hold the water of the rains for the fields.³

According to Parabrahma Sastry, the streams of Telangana flowed full for only a few days after rain, and most of their water ran to waste.⁷ Before the Kakatiyas, wells dug in the stream beds and small canals along the banks were the only ways to use them.⁷

The Kakatiya tanks

Parabrahma Sastry argues that the Kakatiya kings first gave proper attention to irrigation in Telangana.⁷ In his account they saw that much fertile land lay unused for want of water.⁷ They dammed large streams at good points to form big reservoirs.⁷ The bank of earth and stone was built where a stream passed between two hills.⁴ The land below also had to be fertile.⁴

Building a tank was a religious act. Inscriptions count it among the sapta-santanas, the seven deeds of lasting merit.⁷ They list them as a son, a temple, a garden, a tank, an agrahara (a village granted to Brahmans), a literary work and a treasure.⁷ Work on a tank often began by setting up an image of Varuna, the god of waters.⁷

There was no special department for irrigation.⁴ Ministers and chiefs built most of the tanks, as they built temples.⁴ Some of the builders whom Parabrahma Sastry names from the inscriptions are these:⁴¹⁰¹¹

Prola I, who dug the Kesari tank, which Parabrahma Sastry places at Kesamudram in Mahbubabad taluk⁴
Gangadhara, minister of Rudradeva, who built the big tank near Hanamkonda⁴
Jagadala Mummadi, son of the minister Bayyana Nayaka, who built the Pakhal lake in the reign of Ganapatideva¹⁰
the general Recherla Rudra, who built the Ramappa lake in 1213¹⁰
Mailamba, sister of Ganapatideva, who built the Bayyaram tank¹⁰
Chaunda, a commander of Ganapatideva’s army, who built the Chaunda-samudra at Kondaparti¹¹

The greatest of these tanks were still in use in the 1970s.⁴ Parabrahma Sastry gives the Pakhal dam as about a mile long, with 40 channels, watering 9,037 acres in his day.¹⁰ The Ramappa bund was 2,000 feet long and 56 feet high and watered 4,350 acres.¹⁰ The Ghanpur tank, of the same period, watered about 350 acres.¹⁰ The Laknavaram, Bayyaram and Pakhal tanks were all fed by streams flowing off one plateau.¹⁰ See the Laknavaram lake.

A Telugu school geography of about 1934 still described Pakhal as one of the chief tanks of the Nizam’s state.¹² It repeated that Jagadala Mummadi had built it in the time of Ganapatideva.¹² In 1909 Pakhal was the largest artificial lake in Hyderabad State, covering nearly 13 square miles.³

Tanks were not the only works. Parabrahma Sastry also describes ata-kaluvas, canals fed by water seeping through the sandy banks of streams.¹¹ Inscriptions name many of them, such as a canal fed by the Musi and another on the Aleru near Kolanupaka.¹¹ Water was also lifted from deep wells by bullocks.¹¹

Rayalaseema: tanks and river dams

The dry country south of the Krishna also lived by tanks. An inscription summarised by V. Rangacharya records that Anantarasa Udayar, a minister, dug the great tank at Bukkarayasamudram near Anantapur.¹³ At Porumamilla, in the Badvel taluk of Cuddapah, an inscription of 1369 records that Bhaskara, son of Bukka, built a fine tank.¹⁴ Bhaskara then ruled at Udayagiri.¹⁴ The Cuddapah gazetteer of 1915 takes him to be a son of the Vijayanagara king Bukka I, ruling the Udayagiri province as viceroy.¹⁵

The Cumbum tank in Kurnool district was formed by a dam 57 feet high across the gorge of the Gundlakamma river.¹⁶ In 1908 it covered about 15 square miles.¹⁶ The gazetteer pointed out that rivers running in deep gorges between hills made it easy to form tanks by damming them.¹⁷

On the Tungabhadra, the kings of Vijayanagara built a number of dams of huge uncemented stone blocks, above and below their capital.¹⁸ Ten of them still watered narrow strips of land along the river in 1908.¹⁸

Golconda and Hyderabad

The Hyderabad gazetteer wrote that most of the state’s large tanks had been built by its former rulers or ministers.⁸ It named the Husain Sagar, the Ibrahimpatnam tank, the Mir Alam tank, the Afzal Sagar and the Jalpalli tank among them.⁸ The smaller tanks were the work of zamindars (landholders).⁸ In 1909 the state had 370 large tanks and 11,015 kuntas (ponds), besides 1,347 channels and 123,175 wells.⁸

In the twentieth century the Nizam’s government built larger works. After the Musi flood of 1908 it planned two reservoirs above Hyderabad, to hold back floods and to store water.¹⁹ The first, Osman Sagar on the Musi at Gandipet, was begun in 1913.¹⁹ See also Himayat Sagar. On the Manjra in Nizamabad district, Pictorial Hyderabad (1929) describes the Nizam Sagar dam as being built.²⁰ See Famines, floods and cyclones for the flood.

The anicuts of the deltas

In the Madras districts east of the Ghats, the irrigation works of the early 1900s included about 6,000 dams across rivers and 33,000 tanks.² The largest works were the anicuts at the heads of the deltas.⁵⁶

Arthur Cotton took up the plan for a dam across the Godavari in 1845, and work began under him in 1847.⁵ The dam crossed the river in four sections joined by islands, 3,982 yards in all.⁵ By 1903–04 its three canal systems watered 662,000 acres and had 493 miles of navigable main canals.⁵ The Godavari gazetteer wrote that the dam “changed the whole face of the delta” and freed it from the fear of famine.²¹ See the Dowleswaram anicut.

The Guntur famine of 1832–1833 led the government to plan a dam on the Krishna too.²² It was built at Vijayawada (then Bezwada) and in 1903–04 watered 616,760 acres of government land.⁶ See the Krishna anicut.

On the Penna, a dam at Nellore, built in 1855, was repaired and reshaped by Cotton in 1858.²³ A second dam, at Sangam, was built in 1886 to fill the Kanigiri reservoir.²³ Together the Penna works watered 155,000 acres in Nellore district.²³ In Cuddapah district, the Sagileru project of 1898–99 dammed that river to feed a chain of tanks.²⁴

The Kurnool–Cuddapah canal

The Kurnool–Cuddapah canal took water from a dam on the Tungabhadra at Sunkesula, 17 miles above Kurnool.²⁵ It ran for 190 miles through Kurnool and Cuddapah districts to the Penna and on to Cuddapah town.²⁵ It was built by the Madras Irrigation and Canal Company, a private English company formed by Act of Parliament in 1858.²⁵ The company soon ran short of money, and the canal was still unfinished in 1872, after £1,600,000 had been spent.²⁵ The government bought it in 1882 for £1,700,000.²⁵

The Imperial Gazetteer judged that it had “never been a success”.²⁵ Its line was badly chosen and parts of it could carry only half the water planned.²⁵²⁶ Many farmers found dry crops paid better than irrigated rice.²⁶ But it gave important protection to a very dry area: when the rains failed, water was freely taken from it.²⁶

Plans for the Tungabhadra

In 1908 the Tungabhadra was still little used for irrigation, because the land rises steeply from both its banks.¹⁸ The Irrigation Commission of 1901–1903 recommended looking again at an old plan for a great reservoir on the river near Hospet.¹⁸ A canal from it was to carry water to Bellary, Kurnool, Anantapur, Cuddapah and Nellore districts.¹⁸ In 1908 detailed estimates were being prepared.¹⁸

Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 2 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 44 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Imperial Gazetteer: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 4 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 204 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 165, “Godavari Canals” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 168, “Kistna Canals” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 203 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹
Imperial Gazetteer: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 34 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Imperial Gazetteer: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 33 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 205 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 206 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Makhdoom Mohiuddin, Nizam Rajya Bhugolamu (Telugu, about 1934), p. 29 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
V. Rangacharya, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency, Vol. I (1919), p. 1, Anantapur No. 1 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 399, “Porumamilla” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
C. F. Brackenbury, Madras District Gazetteers: Cuddapah, Vol. I (1915), p. 35 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 404, “Kurnool District” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 421, “Cumbum Taluk” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 169, “Tungabhadra” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Modern Hyderabad (Deccan) (1914), pp. 84–85 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
K. Krishnaswamy Mudiraj, Pictorial Hyderabad, Vol. I (1929), p. 91 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
F. R. Hemingway, Madras District Gazetteers: Godavari, Vol. I (1907), p. 140 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Gordon Mackenzie, A Manual of the Kistna District (1883), p. 253 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 171, “Penner” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 389, “Badvel Taluk” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 180, “Kurnool-Cuddapah Canal” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 181 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³