The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c6.s1: The Early Chālukyas
The Chālukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c6.s1
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The Early Chālukyas
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TO describe the monuments of a country without giving some account of the people who raised them would be to deprive our study of a great deal of its interest. It is, therefore, necessary to give a very brief outline of the Chālukyan dynasty, with its subordinate chiefs, under whose auspices the buildings we are about to examine were erected. Until its numerous lithic records and copper-plate charters were taken in hand¹ and systematically translated, little, indeed, was known of this dynasty; and it is to these translations and Dr. Fleet’s historical account, in the first volume of the Bombay Gazetteer, that I am indebted for the short abstract given below.
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¹ Mainly by Dr J F. Fleet, C.I.E late of the Bombay Civil Service in the *Indian Antiquary* and the *Epigraphia Indica*.
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The country, over which these remains are found, embraces the southern portion of the Bombay Presidency, the northern part of Maisur, and the districts of the Madras Presidency and Nizām’s territory immediately adjoining the former upon the south-east. Over this area, more or less, as the fortunes of war ordained, the Chālukyan kings held sway from the fifth to the end of the twelfth century A.D., save for an interregnum of about two hundred years, when the family was, for a time, dispossessed of the bulk of their territory by the Rāshṭrakūṭas from the north.
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Of these records, by far the greatest number consists of inscriptions upon stone tablets, pillars and temples, and are found scattered about all over the Kanarese country, most of them uncared for and unappreciated by the people.² There is hardly a village without a tablet or a memorial stone, many containing considerable numbers. They are, as a rule, neglected, except where they serve some useful purpose, such as convenient slabs for culverts or for village cattle to rub themselves against.
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² A short description of these will be found in the chapter on Miscellaneous Objects
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Old copper-plate grants and charters are found in the possession of individuals, whose ignorance and superstitious ideas induce them to keep the fact secret, thinking they record the whereabouts of buried treasure which the decipherer of them might get hold of and appropriate. Often they are recovered from the bottom of wells and tanks, where they had been thrown for safety during some local disturbance or in times of public danger. These deeds are engraved upon thick plates of copper, which are strung together on heavy copper rings or loops whose ends are embedded in great lumps of metal bearing the seal of the grantor. They are, thus, much more lasting than they would be written upon paper or parchment, palm-leaf or birch-bark.¹
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¹ For a full description of epigraphical records generally, see Dr. Fleet's article in the Imperial Gazetteer of India ‘The Indian Empire,’ Vol II, pp. 1 to 88
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These records give us a history, more or less in outline, of the dynasties that reigned over the land, interlarded with very eulogistic accounts of the virtues of the rulers, and mention the terrible wars they waged with their neighbours. But they do not give us much insight into the internal administration of the country, its trade, social and domestic affairs, or religious changes or feuds. From them, however, checking one by another, lines of succession, with their dates, have been reconstructed and recovered from the limbo of oblivion.
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One of the earliest inscriptions giving an account of the Chālukya family is engraved upon a large slab built into the eastern wall of the old temple of Meguṭi on the hill above the village of Aihoḷe, which is situated in the south-eastern portion of the Bijāpūr District. It is the time of the Western Chālukya king Pulikēśin II., and is dated in the Śaka year 556 (A.D. 634-5).² It gives us no information respecting the Chālukyas, but shows that they had, as neighbours and enemies, the Naḷas, the the Kadambas, the Mātaṅgas and the Kaṭachchuris whom they subjugated. It is, however, that they came originally from Ayodhyā. Further afield they came into contact with the Gaṅgas, the Āḷupas, and the Pallavas of Kāñchi or Conjeveram. They lived under the guardianship of the Saptamātṛi or ‘Seven Mothers,’ and their favourite deity is said to have been Kārtikeya, while the god Nārāyaṇa presented them with the boar standard.
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² Indian Antiquary, Vol. VIII, p 237.
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The earliest historical name that we have for this dynasty is that of Jayasimha I. The name is given in genealogical records of subsequent kings, no inscriptions of his own being known; and it is likely that he, or some predecessor not far removed from him, was the founder of the family in the early centuries of the Christian era. Aihoḷe may possibly have been their first domicile in the south when Pulikēśin I. moved down from the north, and it may have been in his time, or in that of his son Kirtivarman I., that the oldest temples at that place were erected. Pulikēśin I., under his full title of Satyāśraya Śrī Pulakēśin Vallabha Mahārāja, is said to have performed the great aśvamēdha or horse sacrifice. Whether Aihoḷe was the place of their first settlement or not, it is recorded that Pulikēśin eventually took up his headquarters at Vātāpi, the modern Bādāmi, which he appears to have wrested from the Kadambas of Banavāsi, and established himself as the first king of the dynasty somewhere about A.D. 550.
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Pulikeśin I. was succeeded by his son Kīrtivarman I. in A.D. 566 or 567.¹ He subdued the Naḷas, the Mauryas and the Kadambas of Banavāsi in north Kanara. There is one record of his time, namely, an inscription on a pilaster in the verandah of the Vaiṣṇava cave at Bādāmi of A.D. 578, which records that, having, under his orders, finished the construction of the cave-temple, his younger brother, Maṅgalēśa, on the occasion of the installation of the image of Viṣṇu, made certain gifts to the temple and to some Brāhmaṇs.² Leaving two, if not three, young sons, he was succeeded in the government by his brother Maṅgalēśa, who is described as a *paramabhāgavata*, or most devout worshipper of the Divine One (Viṣṇu). These early Chālukyas were mostly, if not all, followers of the Vaiṣṇava cult. Maṅgalēśa's warlike expeditions extended across India from coast to coast. His death is placed in A.D. 608. Of his time there are three records—an undated inscription on the rock outside the Vaiṣṇava cave at Bādāmi; an undated copper-plate grant from Nerūr, and the important inscription upon a great sandstone pillar which was found lying near the old temple of Mahākūṭēśvara.³ The last inscription calls the column a *dharmā-jaya-stambha* or 'pillar of the victory of religion' and tells of an additional grant, made in continuation of a previous one, to the god Mahākūṭēśvaranātha.
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¹ I shall follow Dr. Fleet's order of the Chālukya rulers.
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² For a full translation of this inscription, and an account of the Bādāmi caves, see the *Indian Antiquary*, III 305; VI. 354 and 363; and X. p 57, also the *Cave-temples of India*, 405
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³ Removed to the Museum at Bijapur.
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Pulikeśin II., son of Kīrtivarman I., followed his uncle upon the throne, and it was during his reign that the stone inscription was set up on the temple of Mēguṭi at Aihoḷe. He was, without doubt, the greatest of the early Chālukya kings. He carried his arms from the Malabar to the Coromandel coast, and as far north as the Narmadā river which he fixed on his northern boundary. In the south he laid siege to Kāñchīpūra (Conjeveram), the capital of the Pallavas, and invaded the country of the southern chiefs of the Chōḷas, Pāṇḍyas, and Kēraḷas. During his reign the Chinese pilgrim, Hiuen Thsang, toured through India, and, if we are correct in identifying the places he visited, he spent some time, about A.D. 639, in the territories of Pulikeśin. Pulikeśin is said to have sent an embassy to Khosru II., king of Persia, and to have received one from him in return. About this time the family split up, one branch establishing itself over the province of Veṅgī, between the lower reaches of the Kṛṣhṇa and Gōdāvari rivers, where we shall leave them as they do not concern us any further. They are called, for convenience, the Eastern Chālukyas.
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The end of Pulikeśin's reign saw the temporary obscuration of the Chālukyan power, when the Pallavas invaded the country and reduced Bādāmi. But this state of affairs did not last for long, as Pulikeśin's son, Vikramāditya I., re-established the supremacy of the family, led his troops to the gates of Kāñchī itself and took the city. He is described as a devout worshipper of Śiva.
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Of Vijayāditya's reign we have an inscription upon the temple of "Kaḷḷamaṭha" at Bādāmi of A.D. 699, in the third year of his reign, while he was at the capital of Vātāpi; another on the wall of the temple of Huchchimalliguḍi at Aihoḷe, dated in the thirteenth year of his reign (A.D. 708-9); and one on a pillar in the porch of the temple of Mahākūṭēśvara near Bādāmi. He built the great stone temple of Vijayēśvara at Paṭṭadakal, now known as that of Saṅgamēśvara, as we learn from an inscription of the time of Kīrtivarman II. He also installed images of Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Mahēśvara at Bādāmi in A.D. 699. His name is coupled with that of his son Vikramāditya II. in a Paṭṭadakal inscription recording gifts made by them to the temple of Lōkapālēśvara. He also made grants to certain Jaina temples at Lakshmēśwar.
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Vikramāditya II. left inscriptions upon the Durga temple at Aihoḷe and the temple of Lōkēśvara (Virūpāksha) at Paṭṭadakal. Those upon the latter are important, for, the temple itself being the largest and finest of its class in these districts, they give us an excellent landmark in the chronology of these buildings and the history of their architecture. We are told in these inscriptions that the great temple of Lōkēśvara was built for his chief queen, Lōkamahādēvī, in commemoration of his having thrice conquered the Pallavas of Kāñchī. At the same time we learn that his second queen, a sister of the first, also had a temple built in close proximity to the other, which was named, after her, Trailokyēśvara. In studying the former building we shall find it very interesting to compare it with one of about the same age at Conjeveram and the great monolithic temple of Kailāsa at Ēlūrā. Vikramāditya is said to have carried his warlike expeditions far to the south, and, after leaving an inscribed record in the temple of Rājasimhēśvara at Kāñchī, to have set up a pillar of victory on the shores of the southern ocean. He made grants for Jaina worship at Lakshmēśvara, the old Raktapura, which place seems to have been a great centre of the Jainas at that period.
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Vikramāditya was succeeded in A.D. 746 by his son Kirtivarman II., of whose time we have but two inscriptions, in A.D. 754 and 757 respectively. The second is on a column at Paṭṭadakal, between the temples of Vijayēśvara, Lōkēśvara and Trailokyēśvara, and records their erection. He made grants to Jaina temples. From this time forward there is a break in the records of the family, but from other sources it may be gathered that their neighbours, the Rāshṭrakūṭas, swept down upon them from the north and dispossessed them of their kingdom. For the next two hundred years the family, driven into the southernmost corner of their former territory, within the confines of the present Maisur province, probably lived on, in genteel poverty, in possession of a very small estate—too small, in fact, to cause the Rāshṭrakūṭas any uneasiness for many years to come.
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It would be to no purpose in this place to give, in detail, a long string of names of rulers with their bombastic accounts of their petty wars. The accompanying table, eliminating all extraneous matter, will be sufficient, with a few remarks about those who have been connected, more or less directly, with the monuments we are studying.