The Andhra is equally applicable to the land, the people and the language. Indeed, the term Andhra has a respectable ancestry. It first occurs in the Altareya Brahmana. The reference is to a south Indian tribe. The Purnas refer to the `Andhrabhotya dynasty of kings called Satakarni and satavahanas’.
The history of the Andhras begins only from the rise of the Satavahanas who flourished after the decline of the Mauryan Empire. The golden age of the Satavahanas who ruled from the middle of third century BC to the first quarter of AD third century was marked by great literary and artistic activity and expansion of trade and commerce across the seas.
Ptolemy makes an approving reference to the alliance by marriage AD 200 between Pullmayi II and the daughter of Rudradama, the western satrap based in Malwa and Gujarat. Buddhist received great impetus for nearly 600 years from 300 BC to AD 300 under enlightened rule of the Andhra dynasty. Actually, chaityas and viharas were built n a large scale with the help of the funds provided by the mercantile community, many scions of which even became monks.
The next important phase of the rise of Andhra power dates fromo had the Kakatiya empire in the 13 th and the 14 th centuries. The Kakatiyas who had their capital at Warangal were grat patrons of Brahmanical art.
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