CHAPTER -XV THE KINGDOMS OF THE DECCAN r M-tUH term Deccan, a convenient and familiar cor- -JL ruption of the Sanskrit word meaning the south, may be, and sometimes is, extended so as to cover the whole of India south of the Narmada, but is more usually understood as designating a more limited terri- tory, in which Malabar and the Tamil countries of the extreme south are not included. Thus limited, the term connotes the whole region occupied by the Telugu- speaking populations, as well as Maharashtra, or the Maratha country. With reference to modern political divisions, the greater part of the Deccan in this re- stricted sense is occupied by the territories of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Physically, the country is for the most part a hot, hilly table-land, watered by two great rivers, the Goda- vari and the Krishna (Kistna), the latter of which receives on the south an important affluent, the Tun- gabhadra. In this region the dominant power for four centuries and a half, up to about 230 A. D., was the Andhra, the history of which has already been discussed. For some 349
