Pre-Satavahana Period
There are several references about an Andhra kingdom and a people called Andhras in the Sanskrit epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, Puranas, and Buddhist Jataka Tales. Rukmini from the Mahabharata hailed from Vidarbha, the Kingdom stretching through the Deccan Plateau, around the Vindhya ranges which includes the present day Andhra, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka regions, including the little known, now apparently submerged archipelago in the Bay of Bengal. Rama in his exile is said to have lived in the forests around the present day Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh.
Evidence for a flourishing kingdom in coastal Andhra Pradesh relates to the visit of Buddha to Amaravati in the Guntur district. Lord Buddha preached at Dharanikota and conducted Kalachakra ceremony, which takes the antiquity of Amaravati back to 500 BC. Taranatha, the Buddhist monk writes: "On the full moon of the month Caitra in the year following his enlightenment, at the great stupa of Dhanyakataka, the Buddha emanated the mandala of "The Glorious Lunar Mansions" (Kalachakra). The recorded history of Amaravati and nearby Dharanikota is from the 2nd century BC.
Although there are signs that the history dates back to several centuries BC, we only have any authentic archeological evidence from the last two millennia. The Kingdom of Pratipalapura (5th century BC), identified with Bhattiprolu, in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh appears to be the earliest known kingdom in South India. We also have an inscriptional evidence to show that king Kubera was ruling over Bhattiprolu around 230 BC followed by Sala Kings. The script of Bhattiprolu inscriptions was the progentor of Brahmi Lipi that diversified later into modern Telugu and Tamil scripts.
Read more about this topic: History Of Andhra Pradesh
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