The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c7.s2.27

v1.c7.s2.27

Assuming now that the Sātavāhanas were Andhras, the area of their early political activity can be ascertained only after correct location of the habitat of the Andhras in the earliest historical times. Whatever be the difference of opinion regarding Andhra–Sātavāhana affiliation, almost all scholars are agreed that the home of the Andhras then, as in later times, was the Telugu country, on the eastern side of India between the rivers Godāvarī and Kṛṣṇa. As the Choḷas and Pāṇḍyas appear to have from time immemorial occupied approximately the same geographical positions in which they are found at the dawn of history, it is very likely that the Andhras did the same. Buddhist literature of an earlier period locates the Andhra country south of Telivāhana, a tributary of Mahānadi. The Andhras existed as a great power in the days of Chandragupta with considerable military force and ‘thirty walled towns’. These walled towns may well have been held by a number of Andhra chieftains. In Aśoka’s Rock Edict XIII these appear to have nominally accepted his suzerainty. They are classed together with other semi-independent peoples of the Deccan. Of them, since the Bhojas are located in the Western Deccan, the Andhras with their thirty walled towns must have been in the Central and Eastern Deccan. On the whole it would appear that, as suggested by Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar, the land of the Andhras must have at this early period consisted of certain parts of the Central Provinces together with the Vizagapatam District, and may have also included the Godāvarī and Kṛṣṇā districts.¹ Thus there is no question of the Eastern Deccan having been called Andhra after its conquest by the Sātavāhanas. Andhradeśa existed where it is to-day even before the name of the Sātavāhanas came into prominence.²