A family of dynasties
Several lines in the Andhra country used the Choda or Chola name, claiming descent from the Tamil imperial house: the Renāṭi Cholas of Cuddapah, the Pottapi Cholas, the Velanāṭi Cholas of the coast, the Nellore Cholas, and others. Whether any of these descents is genuine is not determinable, and the claim was clearly worth making in a region where Chola armies were a recurring fact.
They ruled as feudatories of the Chalukyas, the Cholas proper, the Kākatīyas and Vijayanagara in turn, and occasionally as independent powers.
Telugu in writing
The Telugu Cholas matter out of proportion to their political weight because of language. The Renāṭi Choda inscriptions of the sixth and seventh centuries are the earliest known writing in Telugu, predating the literary language of Nannaya by four hundred years, and they show the language already used for royal record in a period when Sanskrit and Prakrit were the norm.
The Kalamalla inscription of Erikal Mutturaju is generally cited as the first. These records are short and formulaic, but they fix the point at which Telugu enters the written history of India.
Further reading
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
- Bakker, Hans T. The World of the Skandapurana. Brill, 2014
- Fritz, John M. Hampi Vijayanagara. Jaico, 2003
- Hawley, John Stratton. A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement. Harvard University Press, 2015
- Nath, Vijay. Puranas and Acculturation. Munshiram Manoharlal, 2001
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.