Kosta Andhra · Eastern Coastal Plains
The deltas have the deepest continuous record in the Telugu country and the earliest dates in it, so their periodisation is unusually long at the front and unusually sharp at the back. The ancient period runs from the Bhattiprolu relic caskets, whose inscriptions are among the earliest Brahmi in the south, through the Satavahana stupa at Amaravati and the Ikshvaku city at Vijayapuri, to the Eastern Chalukyas at Vengi, under whose Rajahmundry court Telugu literature begins. The medieval period is defined by the fact that this coast was a frontier rather than a heartland — Kakatiya, Reddi, Gajapati, Vijayanagara and Qutb Shahi authority all reached it from elsewhere — and it closes with the Company's capture of Masulipatnam in 1759. The modern period does not begin with a battle but with an engineering work: the anicuts thrown across the Godavari and the Krishna between 1847 and 1855 turned flood-and-famine country into canal-irrigated double-crop land, and the surplus, the schooling, the printing presses and the politics that followed are all downstream of them. This entry ends in 1947.
Periodisation is regional, not national — the medieval period does not begin in the same century here as it does elsewhere in India.
Silt, a sheltered coast and a river highway made this the earliest densely settled part of the Telugu country, and its early record is overwhelmingly Buddhist. The relic caskets from the stupa at Bhattiprolu, of about the third or second century BCE, carry some of the oldest Brahmi writing in southern India. Under the later Satavahanas the great stupa at Dhanyakataka, now Amaravati, was faced with a limestone railing whose narrative sculpture became one of the two or three most influential schools in Indian art, carried from here to Sri Lanka and South-East Asia. In the third century the Ikshvakus built a planned city at Vijayapuri in the Krishna gorge above the delta, where the endowment records name royal women as the principal donors. The Salankayanas and Vishnukundins followed, and in 624 Kubja Vishnuvardhana established the Eastern Chalukya house at Vengi, whose court at Rajamahendravaram later commissioned the first Telugu literary work.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| c. 3rd–2nd century BCE | Relic caskets inscribed in an early form of Brahmi are deposited in the stupa at Bhattiprolu; a local ruler named Kuberaka is recorded there. |
| 2nd century BCE – 3rd century CE | The great stupa at Dhanyakataka (Amaravati) is enlarged and cased in carved limestone under Satavahana patronage. |
| c. 227–309 CE | The Ikshvakus rule from Vijayapuri, in the Krishna valley at Nagarjunakonda, endowing monasteries for several Buddhist schools; the mahachaitya there was funded by Chamtisri, the founder's sister. |
| mid-4th century | Pallava authority displaces the Ikshvakus; the Salankayanas rule the Vengi country from Pedavegi. |
| c. 420–624 | Vishnukundin rule over the coastal country, with capitals that include Denduluru and Amaravati. |
| 624 | Kubja Vishnuvardhana establishes the Eastern Chalukya house at Vengi; it holds the deltas for four centuries. |
| c. 1050 | Nannaya begins the Telugu Mahabharatamu at the Rajahmundry court of Rajaraja Narendra, the first work of Telugu literature. |
For seven centuries the deltas were the prize rather than the seat. Kakatiya power reached the coast from Warangal in the thirteenth century and Ganapati Deva issued a charter at Motupalli guaranteeing foreign merchants against the seizure of shipwrecked goods, which is the earliest explicit statement of trade policy from this coast. The one indigenous power of the period is the Reddi kingdom, founded at Addanki in 1325 and moved to the hill fort at Kondavidu, with a second branch at Rajahmundry from 1395; its courts kept Errana, Srinatha and Potana and are the reason so much classical Telugu is delta Telugu. After the Reddis the coast was divided between Vijayanagara and the Gajapatis of Kalinga, taken by Krishnadevaraya's Kalinga campaign, then absorbed by Golconda, which made Machilipatnam its principal port. That port is why the Dutch, English and French all placed early factories on this coast, and why the region's oldest export crafts were designed for foreign buyers before they were designed for anyone here.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1070 | Kulottunga I, an Eastern Chalukya prince, takes the Chola throne, joining the two houses and drawing the deltas into a southern imperial system. |
| c. 1180 | The Palnati war is fought at Karempudi on the dry upland immediately west of the delta; the Telugu ballad cycle recounting it is among the oldest in the language, and its scene lies just outside this region's plain. |
| c. 1244 | Ganapati Deva of Warangal issues the abhaya sasanam at the port of Motupalli, fixing duties and guaranteeing foreign merchants against the seizure of goods from wrecked ships. |
| 1325 | Prolaya Vema Reddi founds the Reddi kingdom at Addanki; the capital later moves to Kondavidu. |
| 1395 | A second Reddi branch is established at Rajahmundry; the poet Srinatha is attached to these courts. |
| 1424–1450s | Vijayanagara annexes Kondavidu; the Gajapatis of Kalinga take Rajahmundry, ending Reddi rule on the coast. |
| 1515–1519 | Krishnadevaraya's Kalinga campaign takes Kondavidu, Kondapalli and Rajahmundry; a settlement with Prataparudra Gajapati in 1519 restores territory north of the Krishna and fixes the river as the boundary. |
| 1570s | Golconda absorbs the coastal districts; Machilipatnam becomes the sultanate's principal port for diamonds and painted cloth. |
| 1605 and 1611 | The Dutch and then the English East India Company establish factories at Masulipatnam; a French factory follows later in the century. |
| 1759 | The Company takes the fort at Masulipatnam, and the coastal provinces pass from French to British influence. |
The Company's title to this coast was settled by paper rather than by conquest — a grant of the five Northern Circars from Shah Alam II in 1765, confirmed by treaty with Nizam Ali in 1768 and bought out finally in 1823 — and the permanent settlement of 1802 fixed the intermediary estates that governed rural life for the next century. What changed the region was water. Famine in the Guntur country in 1832 and 1833 emptied villages, and the anicuts built across the Godavari at Dowleswaram between 1847 and 1852 and across the Krishna at Vijayawada between 1852 and 1855 turned two flood-prone deltas into the most intensively canal-irrigated ground in the Telugu world. Everything the region is known for afterwards follows from that surplus: an early and unusually broad spread of schooling, a reform movement that arranged its first widow remarriage at Rajahmundry in 1881, a Telugu press from the 1900s, and a dense, locally organised nationalist politics whose characteristic form was not the procession but the collective withdrawal — a whole town walking out of its municipality, a whole tract refusing a grazing tax.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1765–1768 | Robert Clive obtains a grant of the five Northern Circars from Shah Alam II; the Treaty of Masulipatnam of 1768 settles the claim with Nizam Ali. |
| 1802 | The permanent settlement fixes zamindari tenures across the Circars, creating the intermediary estates that hold the countryside until after 1947. |
| 1832–1833 | Famine in the Guntur country kills a large share of its population and depopulates villages that were resettled only decades later. |
| 1847–1852 | Arthur Cotton's anicut is built across the Godavari at Dowleswaram, turning the delta into canal-irrigated double-crop land. |
| 1852–1855 | A second anicut is built across the Krishna at Vijayawada, with a canal system that reaches Machilipatnam and the coast. |
| 1878–1881 | Kandukuri Veeresalingam publishes Rajasekhara Charitramu, generally called the first Telugu novel, and arranges the first widow remarriage at Rajahmundry on 11 December 1881. |
| 1902 and 1908 | The Telugu weeklies Krishna Patrika at Machilipatnam and Andhra Patrika begin publication, giving the delta districts their own press. |
| 31 March – 1 April 1921 | The All India Congress Committee meets at Bezwada (Vijayawada); Pingali Venkayya's flag design is shown to Gandhi there. |
| 1921–1922 | The Chirala–Perala withdrawal and the Palnadu forest satyagraha run in parallel with non-cooperation. |
| April 1930 | Salt is made in defiance of the salt laws at points along the Krishna and Godavari coast, including Chirala, Machilipatnam and Kakinada. |
| 1942 | Quit India arrests across the delta districts; railway and telegraph lines are attacked in several tracts. |
Rulers and commanders
Ruled the later Satavahana state from the Krishna, in the period when the stupa at Dhanyakataka was cased in the carved limestone that made the Amaravati school one of the most widely copied in Asia.
Dynasty: Satavahana. Seat: Dhanyakataka (Amaravati)
Founded the Ikshvaku house and its planned capital in the Krishna gorge above the delta, a city with monasteries, a stadium and a grid of streets excavated before the valley was submerged.
Dynasty: Ikshvaku. Seat: Vijayapuri (Nagarjunakonda)
Sister of the founder and the principal donor of the mahachaitya at Vijayapuri, endowed during the reign of her nephew Virapurushadatta. The Ikshvaku inscriptions record royal women, not kings, as the main patrons of the Buddhist establishment there.
Dynasty: Ikshvaku. Seat: Vijayapuri (Nagarjunakonda)
Placed in the Vengi country as a Chalukya viceroy and founded a house that held the deltas for four centuries and made Telugu the language of its administration and, eventually, of its literature.
Dynasty: Eastern Chalukya. Seat: Vengi
Commissioned Nannaya's Telugu rendering of the Mahabharata, the work with which written Telugu literature begins. The town that carries his title is still the literary capital of the coast.
Dynasty: Eastern Chalukya. Seat: Rajamahendravaram (Rajahmundry)
Founded the one durable indigenous kingdom of the deltas out of the collapse of Kakatiya authority, moving its seat to the hill fort at Kondavidu and endowing temples and irrigation works along the Krishna.
Dynasty: Reddi kingdom. Seat: Addanki, later Kondavidu
Established the northern branch of the Reddi house on the Godavari. Its court and that of Kondavidu kept Srinatha and Potana, and the classical Telugu of the fifteenth century is largely delta Telugu because of them.
Dynasty: Reddi kingdom, Rajahmundry branch. Seat: Rajahmundry
From the permanent settlement of 1802 the countryside was administered through intermediaries holding a fixed revenue engagement, some of them old chiefly families and some of them revenue farmers who had bought in. The office, not any dynasty, is what stood between the cultivator and the state on this coast for the whole colonial period, and the tenant politics of the 1920s and 1930s was addressed to it.
Dynasty: An office created by settlement, not a lineage. Seat: The estates of the coastal districts
Designed and built the Godavari anicut at Dowleswaram between 1847 and 1852 and pressed for the Krishna anicut that followed. The double-crop delta, the canal network dense enough to make ferries ordinary transport, and the surplus behind the region's schooling and politics all date from that work.
Dynasty: Company and Crown administration. Seat: Dowleswaram
The history of Kosta Andhra from ancient through medieval to modern times, and the rulers, commanders and administrators who shaped it. (9)