This chapter traces the social and political formation of early South India from the third century BCE to the fifth century CE. In the Deccan (present-day Telangana, Andhra, Karnataka and Maharashtra) the Satavahanas established a powerful kingdom in the first century BCE. Their contemporaries in Tamizhagam were the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas. The Tamil rulers started two centuries earlier, as they figure in Ashoka's inscriptions of the third century BCE.
1. Sources
| Type | Sources |
|---|---|
| Archaeological | Megalithic burials; excavated sites such as Arikamedu, Kodumanal, Alangulam and Uraiyur; Buddhist stupas at Amaravati, Nagarjunakonda |
| Numismatic | Satavahana and pre-Satavahana coins; Chera, Chola and Pandya coins; Roman coins |
| Epigraphic | Ashokan inscriptions in Prakrit (Andhra-Karnataka); Tamil-Brahmi cave inscriptions at Mangulam, Jambai and Pugalur; pottery inscriptions even at Berenike and Quseir al Qadhim (Egypt) |
| Literary | Tamil texts; Kautilya's Arthasastra; the Puranas; Buddhist chronicles such as Mahavamsa; Gatha Saptasati, a Prakrit text by the Satavahana king Hala |
| Foreign notices | Periplus of the Erythrean Sea (Greek, first century CE); Pliny the Elder's Natural History (first century CE); Ptolemy's Geography (second century CE); the Roman map Peutingerian Table |