Telangana - History
Telangana, as a geographical and political entity was born on June 2, 2014 as the 29th and the youngest state in Union of India. However, as an economic, social, cultural and historical entity it has a glorious history of at least two thousand five hundred years or more. Megalithic stone structures like cairns, cists, dolmens and menhir's found in several districts of Telangana show that there were human habitations in this part of the country thousands of years ago. Remnants of iron ore smelting found at many places demonstrate the hoary roots of artisanship and tool making in Telangana for at least two thousand years. The reference to Asmaka Janapada, part of present Telangana, as one of the 16 Janapadas in ancient India proves that there existed an advanced stage of society.
One of the first five disciples of the Buddha, Kondanna is a typical name from Telangana and though there is no exact information about his native place, the earliest known Buddhist township of Kondapur in Medak district is believed to be after him. The Buddha himself famously acknowledged that it was Kondanna who understood him properly. The Buddhist sources say that Bavari, a Brahmin from Badanakurti in Karimnagar sent his disciples to all the way to north India to learn Buddhism and spread the message in this region. Megasthenes, who visited India in the 4th century BCE, wrote that there were 30 fortified towns of Andhras and a majority of them were in Telangana. In the historical age, Telangana had given rise to mighty empires and kingdoms like the Satavahanas, Vakatakas, Ikshvakus, Vishnukundins, Chalukyas, Kakatiyas, Qutb Shahis and Asif Jahis.
The emergence and flourishing of these powerful political formations is in itself a proof of existence of a sturdy economic, social and cultural structure. Thus Telangana has been a vibrant social entity by the time of the Buddha and continued to be so for the next two and a half millennia. Endowed with such rich cultural heritage, despite the attempts by historians and scholars from Andhra region to obfuscate and erase its history, Telangana always retained and fought for its self respect and self rule. Due to the official efforts to ignore, erase, belittle and look down Telangana history and turn it into an appendage or a footnote, particularly during 1956-2014, much of Telangana history is either not properly researched or not recorded even if it was studied. Telangana rose again and secured its political identity now and is in the process of resurrecting its own glorious past. Here is an attempt to reconstruct the history of Telangana, the wonderful musical instrument with a thousand strings.
Even though extensive exploration has not been done, particularly subjected to neglect after 1956, the archaeological department under the Nizams’ government had done tremendous work in discovering the traces of pre-historical human habitations in Telangana. These studies found that human habitations in parts of Telangana can be seen from the Paleolithic age consistently. Either the same locations or extended locations showed people continued to live and develop through the later stages of Mesolithic, Neolithic and Metal ages. Excavations discovered stone tools, microliths, cists, dolmens, cairns and menhirs. All the ten districts of Telangana showed these traces even when a proper, scientific and official research and excavations have not been done and thanks to the efforts of either the first generation researchers before 1950s or individual amateur explorations.
In the historical age beginning from 1000 BCE there are some references of Telangana as a geographical entity as well as Telugu as a linguistic entity, in the contemporary Buddhist and mythological texts. However, it needs a detailed research to discover finer aspects and establish the stage of development of pre-Satavahana society. Thought the official research into this aspect was stalled for about six decades, some enthusiasts like Thakur Rajaram Singh, B N Sastry and Dr D Raja Reddy did their own painstaking explorations and showed that there was a flourishing society before the emergence of the Satavahanas.
Particularly Dr Raja Reddy proved with numismatic evidence that there were rulers before the Satavahanas with Kotalingala as capital and issued their own coins. In these excavations the coins of Gobada, Naarana, Kamvaaya and Samagopa were discovered and at least two other rulers’ names came to light. Thus Telangana happens to be the first region in the subcontinent to have issued punch-marked coins with even insignia. The Buddhist texts as well as accounts of foreigners like Magesthenes and Arrian talked about this region as having thirty forts, many of which have to be explored.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
