Kalamalla

The 5-century Kalamalla inscription at Kadapa district, Andhra Pradesh — a stone inscription of King Dhananjaya Varma of the Renati Chola line, dated to approximately 575 CE, which is traditionally cited as one of the earliest substantial examples of the Telugu language in epigraphic form. The 10-line inscription in old-Telugu script (an early form of the Telugu-Kannada script) records the king's donation of land and village revenues to a Shiva temple. The Kalamalla stone is often paired with the earlier Erragudi (c.258 BCE Ashokan edict containing Dravidian loan-words) and the Addanki (c.848 CE Pandaranga inscription) as key epigraphic markers of Telugu's gradual emergence from Prakrit administrative language to independent literary vehicle. Kalamalla is now housed at the Government Museum, Hyderabad; the original stone is also preserved at the site under ASI protection since 1927.