The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c33.8

c33.8

It is still true to say that practically the political history of the Deccan begins in the middle of the sixth century with the rise of the Chalukya dynasty. The Chalukyas claimed to be a race of Rājpūts from the north, who imposed their rule upon the Dravidian inhabitants of the Deccan table-land, which had already been largely influenced by the Aryan ideas of the northerners before the appearance of the Chalukyas on the scene.¹ The statements in the later Chalukya inscriptions, which profess to trace back the clan to its origin in Ajodhya, and provide the royal family with an orthodox mythological pedigree, are of no historical value. There is some reason for believing that the Chalukyas or Solankīs were connected with the Chāpas, and so with the foreign Gurjara tribe of which the Chāpas were a branch, and it seems to be probable that they emigrated from Rājputāna to the Deccan.²