The record
Three or four copper-plate charters, issued by kings named Kandara, Attivarman and Dāmodaravarman from a capital called Kandarapura, are the basis for this dynasty. The grants are in Prakrit and Sanskrit and record gifts of villages to brahmins and, in one case, to a Buddhist monastery — the mixture of patronage that is normal in the Andhra country at this period.
The dynastic name again derives from the family's gotra rather than from a founder or a place.
The Ānanda Gotrikas ruled a small territory in a crowded field: the Śālaṅkāyanas held Vengī to their north, the Pallavas were expanding from Kāñcī to the south, and the Viṣṇukuṇḍins would shortly absorb much of the coast. Their disappearance in the fifth century is undocumented and is presumed to be absorption rather than defeat.
Further reading
- Basham, A. L. The Wonder That Was India. Sidgwick & Jackson, 1954
- Bakker, Hans T. The World of the Skandapurana. Brill, 2014
- Coedes, George. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. University of Hawaii Press, 1968
- Nath, Vijay. Puranas and Acculturation. Munshiram Manoharlal, 2001
- Ray, Himanshu Prabha. The Winds of Change: Buddhism and the Maritime Links of Early South Asia. Oxford University Press, 1994
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.