A plateau of south-central India between the Eastern Ghats and the Western Ghats. The name is also used for the entire Indian peninsula south of the Narmada River.
The imprudent conduct of the Madras authorities had irritated beyond endurance the two greatest Mussulman powers in the peninsula, the nizam of the Deccan and Hyder Ali, the usurper of Mysore, who began to negotiate an alliance with the Mahrattas.
At the comparatively remote epoch when the Deccan was a forest tract, they were probably also met with there, but the swamps of the Bengal Sundarbans appear unsuited to their habits.
From these it is clear that the country fell in turn under the sway of the various dynasties that ruled in the Deccan, memorials of the Chalukyan dynasty, whether temples or inscriptions, being especially abundant.
That in days so remote as to be undateable, a Dravidian people driven from their primitive home in the hills of the Indian Deccan made their way south via Ceylon (where they may to-day be regarded as represented by the Veddahs) and eventually sailed and drifted in their bark boats to the western and north-western shores of Australia.
Huxley concluded, from descriptions, that" the Deccan tribes are indistinguishable from the Australian races."