XIII

^t 3Mfa xrf f^s Mrts^na %ter

^/TTHE Andhras, whose modern representatives, the

T Telugu people, still occupy the region between the
G-odavari and the Krishna, on the east coast of India,
are mentioned very early in Indian literature "3 reads
the Cambridge History of India. It is History that
links the Andhras with G-ujarat; Andhra inscriptions
and coins have been found in eastern Malwa and
in G-ujarat.

The fertile lands that lie between the rivers
G-odavari and Krishna present yet another picture of
India. A cross-section of the people, twenty million
and more, who inhabit the Andhra regiona reveals
lawyers and officials in government service; zamindars
and opulent land-lords possessing vast estates; priests,
poets and writers, editors of magazines and news-
papers; political and religious leaders, all trying to
reform the people, or work for the Congress or other
organizations, or co-operate with the existing institu-
tions in power.

The majority, the ryots, are the simple, humble and
hospitable peasants cultivating and living on the produce
of their mother earth. And then there are the weavers
who produce any cloth from the roughest Jchaddar to
the softest silks; the pofcteis whose wheels shape the
vessels that are needed by every village home; the
village workmen with magic fingers who chisel from
mere chips of wood the pretty toys and models that
make the delight of children and grown-ups and the