Andhra

Andhra

 

(Telugu), one of the peoples of southern India (state of Andhra Pradesh and adjacent areas of the states of Madras and Mysore). The population in 1967 was approximately 44 million. The language spoken is Telugu, a member of the Dravidian language family. The Andhra, Kalinga, and Telugu tribes formed the ethnogenetic base of the Andhra. Texts of Vedic, epic, and Buddhist literature mention a migration about the middle of the first millennium B.C. of Andhra and Kalinga tribes from the north of India to the south, where they mixed with the Telugu and became a single nationality in the period from the second century B.C. to the third century A.D. In the third century B.C. the older state of the Andhra became part of the Maurya kingdom, from which they received Buddhism and Jainism. In the fourth century A.D. the Andhra came under the domain of the early feudalistic kingdom of the Guptas. During this period, Hinduism became stronger. In colonial India the ethnic territory of the Andhra was divided among various administrative units, and only in 1956 were the Andhra peoples almost entirely reunited within one state—Andhra Pradesh. A revival and full development of all forms of national culture is taking place.

REFERENCES

Balaramamurti, Y. Kratkaia istoriia naroda andhra. Moscow, 1956. (translated from telugu.)
Narody luzhnoi Azii. Moscow, 1963.
Murti, B. S. N. “Andhra State.” Eastern World, 1954, vol. 8, no. 2.

N. R. GUSEVA

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Andhra

 

in ancient times, a kingdom in southern India.