The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c29.156

v3.c29.156

Vīra Ballāla's reign coincided in the earlier part with the reign of Bijjala's sons, extending from 1167 to 1186, and he took advantage of the unpopularity of the usurpation to consolidate his own kingdom. Vīra Ballāla had already distinguished himself under his father's general Tantrapāla Hemmādi in the conquest of the hill territories and those of the Kongālva, Changālva and others. From the date of his accession references to Chālukya overlordship disappear from inscriptions, as in fact it was the period of usurpation by the Kalachūryas. Although Vīra Ballāla did not assume formal independence and even recognised the overlordship of Sankama, the third son of Bijjala, he was more or less independent. About the year 1178 he brought under subjection the province of Nolambavādi after capturing its capital Ucchangidurga. He restored the capital to Vijaya Pāndya on his submission. The loyalist opposition to the usurpers does not appear to have died out, and the Hoysalas seem to have acted against the Pāndyas of Nolambavādi with the countenance of the last usurper. This brought on an invasion of the Hoysala territory by the loyalist general Bamma who restored the Chālukya dynasty by setting Sōmēsvara IV on his ancestral throne in 1183. Sōmēsvara was compelled to retire to the southwest of his dominions before the rising power of the Yādavas under Bhillama on the one side, and that of the Kākatiyas under Prola and his son Pratāparudra I on the other. This extension of the Yādava power brings the Hoysalas and the Yādavas face to face on the banks of Mālprabhā, and then the Krishna. It was in this neighbourhood that a battle was fought, at Soratūr near Gadag, where Bhillama Yādava was finally defeated, and the fort of Lokundi in Dhārwār was occupied by Vīra Ballāla in 1190. He captured besides other fortified places in the same neighbourhood, between the present Mysore frontier and the Krishna. Sōmēsvara had disappeared before this as a result of a defeat suffered by him from his feudatories, and this victory gave Vīra Ballāla the occasion for assuming formal independence, as no suzerain remained. The loyal Sindas had already been overpowered, and there was no power between the Hoysalas and the Yādavas. The Mālprabhā and the Krishna formed the boundary between these two contending powers on the western side of the Chālukya dominions, the eastern territory passed into the hands of the Kākatiyas. Vīra Ballāla therefore assumed in 1191–92 the titles of a paramount power, and signalised the event by starting an era in his name. The remaining thirty years of his reign were devoted to the work of settling a definitive northern frontier for the Hoysalas and consolidating the territory acquired by them.