Deccan

Deccan (dĕ`kän'), region of India. Sometimes defined as all India S of the Narmada River, it is in a more limited sense the plateau of central peninsular India, including approximately all Karnataka and S Andhra Pradesh, SE Maharashtra, and NW Tamil Nadu. The rich volcanic soil is used for growing cotton. The last of the great Mughal emperors, Aurangzeb, exhausted the power of his empire in a futile attempt (1683–1707) to absorb the region. It was in the Deccan that the Hindus began to regain (early 18th cent.) political and military power in India under Śivaji, leader of the Marathas. There in the late 18th cent. the British decisively defeated the French in their struggle for India.

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Deccan

Peninsula of India south of the Narmada River. It is marked by the tableland between the Western and Eastern Ghats ranges. Its average elevation is about 2,000 ft (600 m). Its principal rivers, the Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri (Cauvery), flow from the Western Ghats eastward to the Bay of Bengal. Its early inhabitants were a Dravidian-speaking population not reached by the 2nd-millennium-BC Aryan invasion. Ruled by Mauryan (4th–2nd centuries BC) and Gupta (4th–6th centuries AD) dynasties, it became an independent Muslim kingdom in 1347. Later split up into five Muslim sultanates, the Deccan was largely conquered by the Mughal dynasty in the 17th century. In the 18th century it was the scene of rivalry between the British and French and subsequently of the British struggle against the Maratha confederacy. It remained under British control until India gained independence in 1947.

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Deccan the

1. a plateau in S India, between the Eastern Ghats, the Western Ghats, and the Narmada River

2. the whole Indian peninsula south of the Narmada River