Fwd: A Brief History of Telugus

The Andhras are one of the most prachina Jati (ancient community)
in the world. They are variously called as Andhras, Andhra
bhrityus, Telugus, while several other names refer to the sub
communities among Telugus.

Some ascribe that the ancestor of Andhras is Andhaka but this does
not have any evidence, including the liturgical or traditional .
Some say Andhras have migrated from river Andri in Maharashtra.
However, this is also does not seem to be possible.

The puranas identify them as one of the six communities given rise
to by Vedic Seer Dirgha tamas from Sudheshna, the queen of exiled
king Bali. They are said to have occupied the coastal area, now
called kosta Andhra or coastal Andhra, comprising of some districts
from Andhra Pradesh.

From here, they must have expanded gradually to west and north ,
occupying not only interior of Deccan but also various other areas
inclusive of north of Vindhyas and even unto Burma.

For example, Vanaras, described in Ramayana are said to be a
primitive Andhra tribe. They have the totem of monkeys worshipping
hills. (Notice how most of the names of the Vanaras are sanskritized
to denote the Sanskrit names of the hills). Hanuman's parents, for
example lived on the banks of Andri river near Nasik. Thus, vanaras
also called andhras must have given their name to Andri rather than
other way round. It will be interesting to know that another Andri
river is found in Kurnool district, Andhra Pradesh, though it is
called Handri, with a tinge of Kannada.

Liturgically, reference to Andhras first occurs in Aitereya
Brahmana. Maha bharata also refers to Andhras, who fought on the
side of Kauravas and later, were subjugated by Pandavas.

Kamsa's vassal Canura was an Andhra king, ruling the kingdom of
Karoosa on the northern banks of Yamuna. The present Adoni near
Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh extending its kingdom into Karnataka, was a
kingdom mentioned in Mahabharata.

The kingdom of Kishkindha, that of Vanaras in Ramayana, is
identified with the borders of Andhra and Karnataka, comprising of
Hampi and Anantpur districts. There is a place called Vali's pyre
near Hampi.

.Serivanija Jataka says that Buddhists lived in Andhapura on the
banks of the river Telivaha. This suggests that the language spoken
by Andhakas could have been called the language of the people of
Teli river
area - telugu. Telivaha river is another name for Godavari.

Historically, Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador to the court of
Chandragupta Maurya (4c-5c BC)
described Andhra as a great power. According to Magasthenes, the
Andhras possessed numerous villages, 30 fortified towns and an army
of 1,00,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry and 1,000 elephants. the Asokan
edict of Erragudi (Kurnool dt.) mentions Andhras along with
Rathikas, Pulindas, Bhojas, and Pitenikas of Deccan as followers of
Dhamma (Buddhism).

Pliny (77 AD) followed Megasthenes and repeated the same Ptolemys'
accounts and the ananymous author's the periplus of the Erythrean
Sea' shed light on the ports, trade routes, markets and various
items of trade, of Andhra during those times.

Great law givers like Bharadwaja, Apastamba. Boudhyana, Katyayana
and Canakya were Andhrites, as was Nagarjuna, the great Buddhist
alchemist.

Burma has a community of people called Telaings. They are believed
to have come from Telingaana in India in the 4c. BC. The earliest
Telaing alphabet
is identical to the Vengi alphabet of the 4c.AD. The earliest
settlers
are believed to have embarked at Amaravathi in Andhra and landed at
the
port of Martaban in the Thaton region.

Among the two Chinese travellers who visited India in the 5th and
7th centuries A.D., Fahien, though did not visit the south, referred
in his account to Andhra Parvata Vihara about which he heard. The
other Chinese traveller Hieun Tsang came to the South and toured the
coastal Andhra as well in the first half of the 7th century A.D. He
left us a vivid account of the religious customs and ways of the
life of the people.
The reference to the Nanda king in Kharavela's inscription (Hathi
Gumpha) to his carrying away to Magadha a Jina statue as a trophy
from Kalinga and the existence of Nanded (Nau Nanda Dehra) on the
Godavari testify that a large portion of the Deccan formed part of
the Nanda empire. Commercially also the South began to grow in
importance for the sake of its diamond and gold mines, peart and
chank fisheries and numerous opulent marts'. (Kautilya).

Language wise, Telugu was one of the earliest languages. It was
called pisaci after the unkempt disciples of Dakshina moorthy, a
great teacher believed to be the Avatar of Siva, from Mahendra giri
(modern Sri kakulam district in northern Andhra Pradesh)
Hanuman was said to have written the first commentary on Bhagavad
gita in pisaci language. Gunadhya, a poet from the Andhra king Hala
has written the much acclaimed Brhat katha, which was retold as
many famous compendiums of fables such as Katha saritsagara (of Soma
deva , a poet in the court of Ananta, king of Kashmir) and
Brhtakatha manjari by Ksemendra, again of Kashmir. It was translated
into Tamil as Perunkathai. There are also many other prakrit texts
such as Gatha sapta sati by Hala which have used Telugu words.

There are several reasons to identify pisaci as the forerunner of
Telugu. First and foremost, Gunadhya who is an obviously Telugu
man, promises not to write in Sanskrit any more as he lost a bet
with his colleague. Hence, he proceeds to write the great Brhtkatha
in his mother tongue. However, this mother tongue is identified as
Pisaca language. Thus, pisaca could not have been anything other
than Telugu or Andhra language. The other reasons are detailed
below":

a) The language Paisaci has emerged in Andhra area
b) Paisaci was said to be a very sweet language. When Gunadhya was
singing the songs from his Brhtkadha, the animals of the forest were
said to have gathered listening to him. Even the animals have
forgotten food and water in the process, since the language was so
very sweet. Traditionally, Telugu is acclaimed as a very sweet
language

c) All the known works of Paisaci are written by Telugu people-both
Hanuman and Gunadhya are Andhrites

d) As mentioned above, Paisaci is claimed as a forerunner of both
Dardic languages as well as Dravidian languages. That is to say, it
has characteristics of both Dardic language as well as Dravidian
languages. Telugu also has the same kind of characteristics.


This clearly shows that Telugu was a very old language. The word
Andhra was variously referred as kingdom, community and language
(sometime in 1053 CE in the Nandampudi inscription) The words
Telugu and Andhra were used simultaneously to refer to one language
by Mulaghatika Ketana (13c AD) in his Andhrabhashabhushanamu

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