Telangana History Origin of the Word Telangana 

The first Telugu texts which mentioned the words ‘Telangana’ and ‘Telugu people’ were Markandeya Purana and Vayupurana.

Telugudesa was called as Trilinga or Tilinga in these books. They both belonged to the early cen­turies of A.D. Ptolemy’s chronicle ‘Geography’ which belongs to the same age called the Telugudesa as .’Tilingan’. The capital of Tilingan was called as Triglipatan or Tirgiphan by Ptolemy.

Vayupurana stated Tilinga’s Janapada as one of the Janapadas of Middle India in a verse “Arthapascha Tilingascha Magadhas chavriki Saha Madhyadesa Janapadah, Prayaso mee Prakeerthita”. That region is the same as contem­porary Telangana. The Telugus of vaidik literature were the neighbours of kalingas who conducted occupations such as farming and cattle keeping and who lived settled life in plains and river banks. The word Kalinga means that ‘people who eat rice’, and it also means that watery region. The people behind them, who lived on upper regions were called as Tala (head) or Talaings. The word Kalinga in Mundari language means that the people who lived on river banks; and Tilinga means people who lived behind the banks, on upper regions. So, as the place where the Kalingas lived was called as Kalingadesa, the people where Telingas lived was called as Telingadesa. Contemporary Telangana was called very early as Andhradesa also; So from the time of Vayupurana, the same place was called as both Andhradesa and Tilinga (Telinga). It was concluded that the word Tailangu came from the word Talaingu. The kurgodu inscription of 12th cen­tury contains the word ‘Telunga’. Later on that word transformed into Telugu scholars also said that the river Godavari has another name as Telivaha river; This word and the word Tilinga are related.

The region Telinga can be understood as the place where Tilingas (Telugu people) lived until the time of early Satavahanas. Later on, the term had transformed into Tenugu, which denoted the whole of Telugu people, Telugudesa and Telugu region as a whole and had come into universal usage. The word Tillinga’ was also found in the purli inscription of Indravarma of Ganga dynasty. This word is almost the same as the word used by Ptolemy (Tilingan). There were three regions in the Kalinga kingdom which spread between the rivers, Ganga and Godavari. They are North Kalinga, Middle kalin­ga and South kalinga. The North (uttara) kalinga became Utkala, Middle (madya) kalinga was called  by ptolemy as Meadow kalinga and South (Dakshina) kalinga had become ’Tenkalinga’. Some say that Tenkalinga had later transformed into Tenugu and then to Telugu. However, Agathiyam’ (5th century A.D.). The tamil grammar text men­tioned a language called ‘Telungam’. As ‘Saivism’ spread extensively by 9th century A.D., the word Tillinga was sanskritised and has become Trilinga that is why Rajasekhara a poet between 880-920 A.D. used the word ‘Trilingadhipati’ in his writ­ings. Nannaya also mentioned the Telinga region in his Adiparva of Mahabharata. Kurgodu inscription of 12^th century A.D., contains the word ‘Telunga’. Vidyanatha, court poet of Kakatiya Pratapa rudra-II, applied the ‘Trilingas’ to the whole of Andhra i.e., both Telangana and Andhra regions. By then, Andhradesa was being called as Trilingadesa. By the time of Prataparudra-II, the whole of Andhradesa was under the rule of kakatiyas. Vidyanatha described Trilingadesa as the region between Draksharama, Kaleswaram and Srisailam (Three Sivalingas). Vidyanatha called Kaleswaram (Now in Telangana) as the third lingam instead of Kalahasti. However, as Vidyanatha was under the influence of Saivism, he called the region as Trilingadesa. Yadava rulers wdre the contempo­raries of Kakatiyas. The minister of Yadava rulers, Hemadri called Kakatiya Pratapa rudra II as ‘Trilingadhipati and Tailinga Kshitipala in his book ‘Vratakhanda’.

Moghul poet Amir khusrau and Abul Fazl called this region as Tilinga and Telingana respectively. Khusrau and Fazl used the term Telingana in their historical writings. They must have taken it from the Tilinga and Tailinga words used by Hemadri.

After the decline of Kakatiyas, Muslim histori­ans mentioned the Andhra region in their writings as Tilinga, Telinga and Telangana. The term ‘Telangana’ appears for the first time in these writ­ings. Though they used these terms (Telinga and Telingana) to describe the whole of Andhra under the Kakatiya rulers, they did not mention the. regions of South of river Krishna or the seashore of Andhra. Telangana, as a specific geographical region, found mention in the writings of muslim his­torians and in the ‘Vilasa Inscription’ of Prolaya Nayaka, after the decline of Kakatiyas.

The word Telangana’ was found in an inscrip­tion of 1417 A.D., found at Tellapur, Sangareddy Taluq of Medak district. In the Velicherla inscrip­tion of 1510 A.D., given by Prataparudra Gajapati, the word ‘Telangana’ was used as “Ananya Sadharana Sahasa Srirjagraha Paschattelungana Durgan”.

The Tirumala inscription of Sri Krishnadevaraya in 2/1/1517 A.D (Chittoor district) and the Chinnakanchi (Tamilnadu) inscription of 14-01-1517 A.D both contain the word ‘Telungana’ The above inscriptions described the conquering of Andhra shores, East and West coast regions by Sri Krishna Devaraya as ‘Purana Digvijayayatras’ and the conquering of North-Andhra and Odissa regions as ‘Kalingadesa Digvijaya Yatras’; and the con­quering of Anantagiri, Undrugonda, Arvapalli, Urlugonda, Rachakonda, Devarakonda, Kandikonda, Kappuluvai, Nalgonda, Jallepally, Kanagagiri, Sankaragiri, Khammam mettu and Durgam (All in Telangana Region) as ‘Telanganyapu fort Yatras’. This proves that the word ‘Telangana’ came to be used all over to denote the region South of rivers Krishna and Tungabhadra (Telangana of today) by 15th century itself. Even inscriptions mentioned it as ‘Tilingam’. This region was also called as Tilingadesa, Tilinganem. ‘Anem’ and ‘Desam’ are synonyms to the word region. Later On ‘Anem’ because Anam and Tilinganem had become Telanganam and further Tilingana and Telangana.

Arab and Persian historians called the Telugudesa in their chronicles as Tiling, Tailang and Tilinga,. After the conquer of Kakatiya kingdom by Mohammed bin Tugluq. The muslims called Trilingadesha as Telingana. The head of army of Tugluq, Anurvali invaded the coastal areas after occupying Warangal. He then noted the region as Telangana in his inscriptions and administrative kaifiyats. From then onwards muslims called this whole region as Telingi. Later region under the Nizam rule came to be known as Telangana.

Objective Bits

1.When did the Historic Age begin as far as Telangana is concerned?
1.6th century B.C.      2. 7th century B.C.
3.8th century B.C.       4. 9th century B.C.
Ans. 1

2.Which among the following works first used the word Dakshinapatha to describe a particular geographical region, exten­sively?
1.Bodhayana Dharmasutras
2.Suthanipatha (Buddhist Text)
3.Vinaya pithaka
4.All the above
Ans. 4

3.Name the foreign traveller who had writ­ten about the Deccan clearly in his writ­ings of 1st century A.D.
1.Pleny             2.Marcogolo
3.Nuniz             4. Nicolo Conti
Ans.1

4.Which foreign chronicler described the 1st century AD. Telugudesa as ‘Telingan’ ?
1..Aristotle      2. Copernicus
3. Ptolemy      4. Kepler
Ans.3

5.Which among the following was one of 16 Janapadas of India in 6th century B.C.?
1.Avanti                   2. Gandhara
3.Panchala             4. All the above
Ans.4

6. Which text stated that there were 16 jana­padas in India in 6th century B.C. ?
1.Mahabharata      2. Ramayana
3.Angautharanikaya  4. Abhidamma Pithika
Ans.3

7. Commentary on Suthanipatha stated that 2 Andhaka kingdoms were present on both sides of river Godavari. What are their names?
1.Asmaka and Avanti
2.Asmaka and Gandhara
3.Asmaka and Kambhoja
4.Asmaka and Mulaka
Ans.4

8.Historians consider this town in Telangana as pothan, the capital of Asmaka kingdom stated in the Vayupurana?
1.Nirmal       2. Bodhan
3.Peddapally    4. Nalgonda
Ans.2

9.Who was the son of Rishabhanatha that ruled the region with Bodhan as his capital , according to Jaina texts?  
1.Vardhamana Mahavira
2.Parsvanatha
3.Viswanatha
4.Bahubali

Ans.4
10.Bavari, the Guru of the Kosala king settled down in the Assaka kingdom to teach here, according to this religious text
1.Angautharanikaya          2. Suthanipatha
3. Vinaya pitaka               4. Abhidamma pithaka
Ans.2

11 Which was the first Aryan text that explained about the Deccan and that the Aryans came down through the Vindhya ranges into the Asmaka kingdom (Telangana today)
1.Brahinanakas 2. Aranyakas
3. Suthanipatha 4. All the above
Ans.4

12.Paaradas, who were considered as the neighbours of Andhras in Vayu and   Brahmanda puranas, were called as southserns of Dakshinatyas in the inscriptions of later period, commissioned by
1. Ashoka                                  2. Kanishka
3.Jayasimha Vallabha             4. Ajatashatru
Ans.1

13.Andhras retreated from Central Asia and came to the Dakshinapatha because of the continuous attacks of Aryans. By the time they came here, which races were living in the Andhradesa?
1.Nagas
2. Mahishakas
3.Asmakas
4. All the above
Ans.4

14 Archaeological evidences suggest that Mahishakas lived in this region
1. Medak district       .
2.Nalgonda district
3.Dharwad district (Karnataka)
4.All the above
Ans.4

15.Which among the following is the meaning of the word Kalinga?
1.Watery region 2. People who eat rice 3. Coastal people 4. All the above
Ans.4

16.Which inscription of 12th century A.D. contained the word ‘Telunga’ ?
1.Kurgodu 2. Maski
3.Rajula mandagiri 4. All the above
Ans.1

17.Which among the following word# was mentioned in the purii inscription com­missioned by Indra varma of Gangeya dynasty king?
1.Tilingam 2. Telunga
3.Tenugu 4. Tilhnga
Ans.4

18.Historians stated that Ptolemy had writ­ten in his book the ‘Geography’ about mid­die kalinga as
1.Tenkalinga 2. Meadow kalinga
3.Lower kalinga 4. All the above
Ans.2

19.Telugu as a language as Telungani, was mentioned in a grammatical text. What is its name?
1.Ashthadhyayi 2. Tolkappiyam
3.Silappadikaram 4. Agathiyam
Ans.4

20.Which among the following copper inscriptions is considered as the first Telugu copper inscriptions ?
1.Vilasa inscription
2.Tirumala inscription
3.Hanumakonda inscription
4.Madras Museum copper inscription
Ans.4

21.Who commissioned the Kalamalla inscrip­tion which is considered to be the first Telugu inscription of Andhradesa?
1.Dhanunjaya
2.Jayasimha Vallabha
3.Kubja Vishnuvardhana
4.Ballaya chola
Ans.1

22.Which among the following inscriptions has half Telugu and half Sanskrit words?
1.Kalamalla
2.Vipparla
3.Erragudipadu
4.Chejerla
Ans.4

23.Which inscription of Sri Krishna devaraya has the word Telungana’ in it?                 ’
1.Chinna kanchi inscriptions (Tamilnadu)
2.Tirumala inscription (Chittoor district)
3.Both 1 and 2
4.None of the above
Ans.3

24.The inscriptions of 1417 A.D., which was found recently is located at »*•*•••» in the Sangareddy Thluq of Medak district.
1.Lingampalli 2. Tuphran
3.Vargal 4. Tellapur
Ans.4