History of Visakhapatnam Part 1
Few centuries ago Visakhapatnam is one of the villages of kalinga kingdom. Visakhapatnam consists sea on onside and hills & forests on 3 sides. You may wonder, if it is a village then by its name Visakhapatnam is known as city. As Visakhapatnam is in Andhra state so the regional language is telugu , so patnam is a telugu word which means city.
The villages which are nearer to the seas are been called cities by assisters of those villages. For example Bimipatnam, Kalingapatnam, Machlipatnam, Nizaampatnam etc. All these are villages at kalinga kingdom. All these villages are nearer to sea. Even Visakhapatnam is also nearer to sea. Therefore, Visakhapatnam is known as city.
From when Visakhapatnam is there? How the name Visakhapatnam came? There are many stories as an answer for these questions. In 5th century the king name visakhavarm who belong to kalinga dynasty used to rule Visakhapatnam. People say that the name Visakhapatnam with came due to the king Visakhavarm.
In earlier, there used to be more loss for the businessmen by pirates and Cyclones. Then business men who related to Visakhapatnam have visited draksharama bheemeshwari in 1068 year as he got his business ship and material safely then he made it write about his visit on a stone by sculpture. By that stone we got known that by the 11 century Visakhapatnam is there. That means from 1500 years itself Visakhapatnam is available in our history.
The first foreigner who came to Visakhapatnam is from Dutch country. First they have established their company in bheemili and then they came to Visakhapatnam in 1630. They even found that Visakhapatnam is also related to shipping industry. In 1750 the population rate of Visakhapatnam is 3000. By this we can imagine that in 1630 there may be less population. On west side of Visakhapatnam there are salt streams and on southside the beautiful yarada hills. There is a cannal which joins yarada hills and salt streams. Now the place where harbor is situated, there few centuries ago, salt streams used to be. At the border of the salt streams there are huts in which fishermen used to live. At that time Visakhapatnam is limited till kota street only and houses are been constructed congested as now also. There is lot of open space at middle of the Visakhapatnam. People used to use this place for exhibitions and for festival celebrations.
The Dutch people who entered Visakhapatnam have first estimated the layout of Visakhapatnam. They laid the road from south to north at the center of the Visakhapatnam. They even laid another road from beach to saint Aloysius School on east to west. Visakhapatnam used to be inside this road. The place which is at center was given to markets and for some people to live, some place left for using for exhibitions and festival celebrations.
At the out cuts of the Visakhapatnam, The Dutch people have build 3 buildings for their company. With few modifications two of them are still exist now also. One of the buildings is now government Queen Mary’s High school and the other building is district register office. The third building is of education department of Vishakhapatnam. But now this third building does not exist as it replaced by some other building related to business.
Though we may not know the history of Visakhapatnam of 15th century. But kalinga kingdom history is available for us. In Bc , India has been divided into Aunga-Vanga- Klinga – Kashmir kingdoms. In that kalinga kingdom contains Visakhapatnam.
Kalinga Kingdom
In the empire of Magadha, Kalinga is a state. The Magadha Empire went from Nandaraju to Maurya’s at BC. In 4rth century, the ruler name Chandragupta Maurya dynasty in those days. A Greek ambassador Megasthenes came to India. He travelled all over India and he gathered lot of information about Indian culture and people life style in India. Then he wrote a book called Indica which is completely about Indian culture and Indian people life style.
Megasthenes has written about kalinga state and people in that kingdom are clever. They live on their profession that is why the kingdom is developing. The king who is ruling kalinga state is very powerful king. He has a lot of 1000 army people, 60,000 security people and 700 elephants. This is the information at the time of Chandragupta Maurya.
When the Ashoka has become Maurya king, then he tried to occupy kalinga state.But could not defeat the kalinga king. A huge war has taken place. In both the kingdoms number of people died and more number of people has been injured. Then the king Ashoka understood, due to these wars there will be a lot of loss. Then he understood and found a away to peace. Finally he left his kingdom and he adopted Buddhism which is the other name of peace and non violence.
Ashoka has constructed Buddha statues in which we can find the art of the sculptures of Andhra. The Buddhism has started later at Salihundam, Vamsadhara at the bank of Annavaram, and Ramatheertham .
After the Maurya Empire from 225 BC to 200AD century a king name Satavahana used to rule Andhra. At the end of Satavahana ruling that is in 2nd century, at that time Acharya Nagarjuna has established a university on hill which is nearer to the Krishna River. So it is named as Nagarjuna Viharam. So it is now known as Nagarjuna hill. The world famous Ajanta caves in which painting about their culture are been included and Amaravati statues are at the time of satavahana ruling.
After satavahana, Andhra state has been divided into small kingdoms. The other bank of Krishna River is related to pallavas, the centre place of Krishna, Godavari is related to Ikshvaku. The place between Godavari in Andhra and Mahanadi in Orissa is ruled by kalinga kings.
11th century to 15th century
The Andhra is ruled by many kings at the time period between 11 to 16 century. All those kings and their related things and gifts details are in simhachalam devasthanam committee records. In the year 1078 kalinga state is under the rule of the kings Ganga dynasty. These kings have built many temples at that time. Our history tells us that Someshwara temple in Mukha linga, Srikurmam, Simhachalam and more temples in north Andhra, Puri and Bhubaneswar in Orissa are built by the kings of Ganga dynasty. A stone at the Simhachalam has been sculptured in which the 1021-1099 included that Visakhapatnam name as Kulothuga chola patnam.
The king Ananthavarma chodaganga has been awarded as three kalinga adhipathi. So by this we can know that at the time kalinga dynasty has been divided into three parts. The famous temple konark in puri has been built by a last king Narasimha raju of Ganga dynasty in 1238 – 1264 in Orissa.
The Ganga dynasty kings have rules upto 14th century. In 14th century Andhra has been ruled by reddy kings. They have defeated kalinga kingdom upto simhadri. The king kondaveeti raju kumaragiri has offer gifts to simhardri nadha in 1386 therefore, he made sculptured about this on the stone. The place around the temple made fertile by kings from different dynasties. .
In 1420 year, the Ganga dynasty kings have came into power by defeating reddies. The king of Ganga dynasty and their people have offered a lot of gifts to temples and they made simhachalam as for religion development.
In 1428 hampi vijayanagar rulers have defeated Andhra state till simhadri. With in less time, Ganga dynasty people have come to power to rule Andhra state. But in 1434 – 1435 due to the revolutions in their kingdom. The last king bhanu4 has resigned his position and finally Ganga dynasty has been stopped.
In Ganga dynasty there are many important hurdles taken place. They has made north Andhra as a company. They have changed their capital from Mukhalinga to Katak.
The places like simhachalam, bhogapuram, yalamanchili, vaddadi, are the main places at their time.
Like it on Facebook, Tweet it or share this article on other bookmarking websites.