History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c16.15

v1.c16.15

The Eastern Chālukyas probably spoke Kanarese while the Trikalingas i. e. Kalinga, Āndhra and Ganjam spoke Telagu and the southern country spoke Tamil. The Eastern Chālukyas, in the beginning however, for some years must have spoken a Sanskrit-born Prakrit Aryan language. They also appear to have kept up marriage relations with the Mahārāshtra and Central Indian Aryan families. A curious fact to be noted in this connection is that in a grant of Vijayāditya (S. In. Ins. Hultsch Vol. I p. 40) we are told that a village was granted to a sardar whose family name was Pattavardhana which family came down from the time of the founder Kubjavishnuvardhana. Now this name "Pattavardhana" is a Mahārāshtra name and still survives among Marathas, Brahmins and other castes also. This Pattavardhana family in the grant appears to have been Kshatriya, as the names of the persons in it are Somāditya, Kuntāditya and so on. It was a family of warriors of long-standing. In a grant of the same Chālukya king Narendra Mrigarāja, the "Ājnyaptā" or command-giver is said to be his brother Nriparudra of the Haihaya family (S. I. Ins. Hultsch Vol. I p. 34). The word brother here must of course mean son of his maternal or paternal aunt. The Chālukyas clearly thus married into the Haihaya Kalachuri family of Central India. It need not be surmised from this that they refused to marry into the Chola, Pāndya and other Dravidian families. For these too had become included by this time (about the 10th century) into the solar and lunar races and the last Eastern Chālukya king did marry a daughter of the powerful Chola kings now assigned as stated above to the solar race. But we may believe that in the beginning for some time at least the Eastern Chālukyas must have confined themselves to marriage with well-known Aryan Kshatriya families of Mahārāshtra and the north, they priding themselves still on their Kshatriya descent.