In Treta Yuga, it is believed that Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana arrived in Telengana from Dandakaranya (present-day southern Chhattisgarh). They initially came to Karimnagar district and lived in places like the Ramagiri hills and Illantha Kunta village. They then moved along the Godavari River spent their lives in exile at Parnashala, which is about 25 kilometres from Bhadrachalam in Khammam District.
Telangana was the homeland of the Satavahana dynasty (230 BCE to 220 CE). Kotilingala in Karimnagar was their first capital, before Dharanikota. Excavations at Kotilingala revealed coinage of Simukha, the first Satavahana emperor.
The region experienced its golden age during the reign of the Kakatiya dynasty, a Telugu dynasty that ruled most parts of what is now Andhra Pradesh from 1083 to 1323. Ganapatideva was known as the greatest of the Kakatiyas, and the first after the Satavahanas to bring the entire Telugu area under one rule. He put an end to the rule of the Cholas, who accepted his suzerainty in the year 1210. He established order in his vast dominion that stretched from the Godavari delta in the east to Raichur (in modern day Karnataka) in the west and from Karimnagar and Bastar (in modern day Chattisgarh) in the north to Srisailam and Tripurantakam, near Ongole, in the south. It was during his reign that the Golkonda fort was constructed. Rudrama Devi and Prataparudra were prominent rulers from the Kakatiya dynasty.
Telangana came under the Muslim rule of the Delhi Sultanate in the 14th century, followed by Bahmanis, Qutb Shahis, and the Mughals. As the Mughal Empire began to disintegrate in the early 18th century, the Muslim Asafjahi dynasty established a separate state known as Hyderabad. Later, Hyderabad entered into a treaty of subsidiary alliance with the British Empire, and was the largest and most populous princely state in India. Telangana was never under direct British rule, unlike the Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions of Andhra Pradesh, which were part of British India's Madras Presidency.
