Telugu

The Telugus, known since antiquity as the Andhras, are the largest Dravidian-speaking people, native to Godavari and Krishna deltas and Deccan uplands. Megasthenes c. 310 BCE put their military power second only to the Mauryas, and their first great state, the Satavahana dynasty of the second century BCE to the second century CE, ruled most of the Deccan from near Amaravati, traded with the Roman world, and Amaravati Buddhist art reached Southeast Asia.

Under the Eastern Chalukyas Nannaya began the Telugu Mahabharata around 1025; the Kakatiya kings of Warangal united the Telugu lands in 1163–1323, Tikkana carrying it on as Telugu matured as a literary language.

When Tughluq armies took Warangal in 1323, the Musunuri Nayaks led recovery and Telugu warriors served Vijayanagara, where under Krishnadevaraya in the early sixteenth century Telugu became the language of high culture across the south. Golconda's Qutb Shahi sultans patronised Telugu until Mughal conquest; in 1765 the Northern Circars passed to the East India Company, which drew the region into the Madras Presidency.