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The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c11: Part VI. The Chāḷukyas of Kalyāṇi

The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c11

Language
English

Contents

Part VI. The Chāḷukyas of Kalyāṇi

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by* PROFESSOR K. A. NILAKANTA SASTRI

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I. Introductory—sources, inscriptional and literary, descent.

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II. The rulers—Taila I, Taila II, Satyāśraya, Vikramāditya V, Ayyana, Jayasimha II, Someśvara I, Someśvara II, Vikramāditya VI, Someśvara III, Jagadekamalla II, Taila III, Someśvara IV.

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III. Administration—royal traditions and emblems, monarchy, coronation, Yuvarāja, imperial titles, relations with vassals, training of princes, the emperor, local and social autonomy, law and justice, priests of the king, palace officials, revenue terms, military offices, plurality of offices held, courts procedure, honours, nature of the State, role of high officials, administrative divisions, village headmen and elders, *nāḍarasa*, *nāḷgāvuṇḍa*, towns and villages, village economy, religious corporations, growth of towns, co-operation in local affairs, voluntary levies, changes in tenure, taxation, inscriptions, land tenure, *tala-vṛtti* (free land), tax rates, nature of Chāḷukya rule, army, sport.

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IV. Social and economic conditions—social ideals, memorial monuments, self-immolation, role of women, fine arts, the temple, architecture and sculpture, jeweller's craft, education, agriculture, commercial crops, industries, trade, guilds, urban life, interest rates and currency, measures; religion, Śaivism, Vaiṣṇavism, Jainism, and Buddhism; literature—Kannaḍa, Sanskrit.

Genealogy

Bibliography

Introductory

Sources

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T HE nature of the sources for the history of the Chālukyas of Kalyāṇī is generally the same as that of those for the earlier Bādāmi period; only the inscriptions, both of the Chālukyas themselves and of the contemporary dynasties with whom they came into friendly or hostile contact, are more numerous and better preserved; stone inscriptions, and with them the Kannaḍa language, gain greater importance in the records of the period, copper-plates becoming rarer. Among literary works Bilhaṇa’s Sanskrit Kāvya, *Vikramānkadevacharita*, deserves special attention as a quasi-historical treatment of the life of the most celebrated Chālukya emperor, which, in the midst of much exaggeration and poetic embellishment, sometimes gives valuable clues to the history of the long reign of Vikramāditya VI. Ranna’s *Gadāyuddha*, a Kannaḍa poem of shorter compass, written in the reign of Irivabeḍanga Satyāśraya, is not so valuable for history, though its importance for any reconstruction of the social life of the time is necessarily much higher than that of Bilhaṇa’s *Mahākāvya*. Other authorities will be mentioned as occasion arises in the course of the narrative.

Descent

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The later Chālukyas who ruled from Kalyāṇī claim descent¹ from the main line of Chālukyas of Bādāmi by a brother of Vikramāditya II about whom, however, we have no information from the inscriptions of the earlier period. The table overleaf shows the line of descent.

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¹ Kauthem (*IA*, xvi, 15-24), Yeūr (*IA*, viii, 11 ff.), and Devāṇagere inscriptions (*EC*, xi, Dg. 1).

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The family legends regarding the *gotra* of the line, their devotion to Kārttikeya and other deities, and the manner of their obtaining their crest and other royal insignia, continue to be the same as those of the Chālukyas of Bādāmi, allowing for minor variations; and though the average duration of a generation appears to be rather long, it is not such as, by itself, could lead one to reject the authenticity of this genealogical account. Yet there are grounds for supposing that the connexion with the Bādāmi line was invented after the fortunes of the family had been re-established by Taila II. The poet Ranna knows of this connexion, but his genealogy differs materially from that of the inscriptions which come a little later. On the other hand Taila II, and perhaps also some of his ancestors, are seen ruling in the Bijapur District and the neighbourhood in the proximity of the original capital of the dynasty, and princes from this line are chosen as husbands for princesses of important ruling dynasties like the Rāṣṭrakūṭas themselves and the Haihayas of Chedi—indications that after all the genealogy may not be altogether without foundation, though it is of course possible that some links in it may have been lost.

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Vijayāditya (A.D. 696–733/4)

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| . . . . . |
| |

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Vikramāditya II Brother, strong as Bhīma, (A.D. 733/4–746/7) not named

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Kirttivarman II Kirttivarman III (A.D. 746/7–757?) | Taila I

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Vikramāditya III

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Bhīmarāja

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Chēdi K. Lakṣmaṇarāja Ayyaṇa = daughter of Kṛṣṇa

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Bonthādēvi = Vikramāditya IV

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Taila II (A.D. 957, earliest date)

Rulers of the Dynasty

Taila I—recovery

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A FRAGMENTARY inscription from Paṭṭadakal states that Śrī Perggaḍe Mahārājan was another name of Taila-Mahādhirājadeva, and this may well be a reference to Taila.¹ Ayyaṇa’s marriage with the daughter of Kṛṣṇa is said to have transferred a great deal of the śrī (prosperity) of her father’s line to that of her husband, which leaves no room for any doubt that Kṛṣṇa was the Rāṣṭrakūṭa ruler Kṛṣṇa II who, in retrospect, appeared by that marriage to have raised the feudatory line of the Chālukyas into prominence, and thus to have paved the way for their further advancement. The issue of this marriage was Vikramāditya IV, whom we may identify with the ruler of that name mentioned with imperial Chālukya titles in an inscription of Akālavarsha, doubtless Kṛṣṇa III, from Devihosūr in the Dhārwār District.² He married Bonthādevī, daughter of the Chedi ruler Lakshmaṇa of Tripuri. Kṛṣṇa III and Lakshmaṇa were indeed friends, but this alliance of Lakshmaṇa’s daughter with Vikramāditya must be held to mark a further step in the recovery of the Chālukyas and the decline of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas. This marriage must have taken place when Kṛṣṇa was absent on his long-drawn-out southern expedition into the Chōḷa country; the aggressive wars of Kṛṣṇa III had no mean part in weakening his kingdom, multiplying its enemies, and giving the Chālukyas their long-wished-for opportunity.

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¹ BK, 176 of 1928-9.

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² BK, 38 of 1932-3. I would not accept the identity of Vikramāditya IV with the Chālukya chief in EC, XICd, 25, Con. IHQ, xiii, 253; the name of the chief is by no means clear in the Cd. inscription. The date seems too late also. Cf. IA, 1918, p. 286, n. 3.

Taila II

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Taila II, the son of Vikramāditya IV and Bonthādevī, we find ruling in the Bijapur District as a feudatory of Kṛṣṇa III in A.D. 957 and again in A.D. 965. While the earlier inscription mentions Tailapayya simply as a subordinate of Kannaradeva in charge of a *nāḍu*, the later record calls him Mahāsāmantādhipati Āhavamalla Tailaparasa, describes him as Chālukya-Rāma, and mentions a subordinate chief of the Khachara-kula ruling under him; Taila had obtained from Kṛṣṇa III the district of Tardavāḍi 1000 as *anuga-jīvita* (fief of an *anuga*, guard). In the seven or eight years intervening between the two inscriptions,¹ Taila seems to have gained considerably in status and power, primarily no doubt as a result of the weakness of the successors of Kṛṣṇa III. An inscription from Gadag, of the reign of Vikramāditya VI, declares that after restoring the regal dignity of the Cāḷukyas, Taila gave peace to the earth for twenty-four years from the year Śrīmukha, Ś.896 (A.D. 973-4)² and this statement is borne out by all our other sources. This date marks the definite overthrow of Rāṣṭrakūṭa sovereignty by Taila and the final carrying out of the plan that he had been preparing for several years during which the course of events had favoured the success of his enterprise. The growing weakness of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa power which roused Taila’s ambitions also attracted the cupidity of foreign powers, and the kingdom was invaded and even its capital, Mānyakheṭa (Mālkhed), plundered by the Paramāras of Mālwa under the leadership of Sīyaka Harṣa and possibly also his successor Muñja, in the reign of Khoṭṭiga, the younger brother and successor of Kṛṣṇa III. Khoṭṭiga’s weak and ill-starred nephew Kakka II, who succeeded him about A.D. 972, fell in a fight with Taila about a year after his accession; he was assisted by an allied ruler, also a Rāṣṭrakūṭa, Raṇakambha, but both the king and his ally were killed in the battle,³ and Cāḷukya sovereignty was re-established. Either the Rāṣṭrakūṭas were a divided house at the time, and there were princes of that dynasty ready to take sides with Taila, or else the victorious Cāḷukya strengthened his position by a dynastic alliance with the family which had then held sway in Karṇāṭaka for two centuries; Taila’s queen was a Rāṣṭrakūṭa princess, Jākavve by name,⁴ the daughter of a certain Bhammaha Raṭṭa.

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¹ BK, 178 of 1933-4 and 113 of 1929-30 (SII, xi (i), 40).

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² IA, xxi, 167-8; EI, xv, 350.

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³ Sogal inscr. EI, xvi, 10; also ibid. vi add. and corr. to v.

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⁴ Sewell describes her as the daughter of Kakka II but cites no authority, HISI, pp. 53 and 384.

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The collapse of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa power was complete; the feeble attempt of the Gaṅga chief Mārasimha to bolster up a nephew of Kakka II who called himself Indra IV came to naught with the death of Mārasimha before A.D. 974, after his futile war with the Cāḷukya Rājāditya which centred round the fortress of Uchchangi.⁵ The feudatories of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas now began to transfer their allegiance to the newly risen power of the Cāḷukyas. Thus we find Śāntivarma of the Brahma-Kṣatriya Mātūr-vamśa ruling first in the Sorab taluk of the Shimoga District as a vassal of Kakkala-deva, and some years later as a subordinate of Āhavamalla.⁶ Another chieftain of Gaṅga origin, Pāñchāladeva, offered resistance to Taila, calling himself ‘Lion of the Cāḷukya’ in one of his inscriptions dated in A.D. 975, and claimed to be then reigning over the entire triangular territory bound by the river Kṛṣṇā on the north and the ocean on the other two sides—a transparent exaggeration;⁷ but we find Taila in camp about the same time in Sirivūr in the Shimoga District,¹ and the cutting off of the head of Pāñchāladeva on the battlefield is mentioned in several inscriptions as an important step in the establishment of Taila’s power; thus there is little doubt that Pāñchāladeva met his fate very soon after the date of his boastful inscription from Mulgund cited above. From the Bellary District we have inscriptions giving Taila full regal titles about A.D. 976, and indicating the complete subordination of the Noḷamba-Pallavas to the emperor, who is seen confirming some gifts of the Noḷamba queen Revaladevī in A.D. 981.² In the region of Banavāsi, Kannapa was among the earliest to recognize Taila’s suzerainty, and his policy was followed by his younger brother and successor Sobhanarasa, who was one of the most loyal lieutenants of Taila, who, pleased with his courage in battle, conferred on him many titles like *giridurgamalla* (wrestler with hill forts), and *sāmanta-chūḍāmaṇi* (the crest-jewel of feudatories).³ The Raṭṭas of Saundatti in the Belgaum District, who owed their rise to the favour of the Rāshṭrakūṭa Kṛishṇa III, hastened to acknowledge the power of Taila, and there are two Kannaḍa inscriptions, both dated about A.D. 980, the Sogal inscription of Kārttavīrya I and the Saundatti record of the less-known *mahāsāmanta* Śāntivarma, in which they are seen to acknowledge their subordinate position in the newly born empire of the Chāḷukya Taila II.⁴ Nearer home in the Bijapur District itself, the Sindas under Pulikāla and his successors of the Bāgāḍage branch of that dynasty also saluted the new power.⁵ In the north, the Śilāhāras of the Northern Konkan and the Yādavas of Seuṇadeśa seem to have willingly acknowledged Taila as their overlord. The Bhadana grant of Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Aparājita of the Śilāhāra family, dated June A.D. 997, makes pointed though regretful reference to the overthrow of Kakka II and gives clear proof of the transfer of allegiance at this time to the Chāḷukya conqueror.⁶ Of the Yādava ruler of the time, Bhillama II, we shall presently have occasion to speak at some length. The territory of Lāṭa was conquered for Taila by his commander Bārapa, also called a Chāḷukya; the somewhat confused literary traditions of his conflict with Mūlarāja of Anhilwada do not concern us and may be left on one side. Taila thus became master of the whole of what had been the Rāshṭrakūṭa kingdom, with the sole exception of their Gujarat provinces.

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⁵ EC, ii, 59 (38) MAR, 1911, para. 77.

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⁶ EC, viii, Sb. 479 and 477. The former is not dated.

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⁷ EI, vi, 257.

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¹ EC, viii, Sb. 445.

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² SII, ix (i), nos. 73, 74.

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³ EI, iv, 206.

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⁴ EI, xvi, 1; JBBRAS, x, 204.

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⁵ DKD, 576-7 Bhairanmatti inscr. EI, iii, 230-6.

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⁶ EI, iii, 272, v. 13.

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Ranna in his *Gadāyuddha* mentions the wars against the Śilāhāras of Konkan and the Gurjaras farther north, and the part played by the crown prince Satyāśraya (Irivabeḍanga) in these conflicts. By order of Taila, the Yuvarāja chased the Konkaṇeśvara to the sea, conquered the Gurjara, and made the earth happy.⁷ The war against Aparājita Śilahāra is described with more picturesque detail elsewhere.⁸ Meanwhile this evidence confirms the indications of the Bhadana grant cited above.

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⁷ ii, 47.

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⁸ i, 22-6.

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Taila’s son and successor Irivibeḍaṅga Satyāśraya is said to have ruled over Raṭṭapāḍi,¹ and the Chālukya kingdom is often described in contemporary Chōḷa inscriptions as Raṭṭapāḍi, the seven-and-a-half-lakh (country). Taila’s capital was Mānyakheṭa;² Bilhaṇa seems to imply that Kalyāṇī became the centre of the empire only under Somēśvara I.

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¹ *EI*, iii, 297. Kharepatan grant.

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² *IA*, xvi, 23, 41-3.

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Heir to the Rāṣṭrakūṭa kingdom, Taila II found himself to be the inheritor of their hatreds and friendships in the sphere of foreign policy. The Paramāras of Mālwa and the Chōḷas had been the chief foes of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas, and it is probable that Taila, while still a feudatory of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas, had had occasion to come into conflict with these powers in the wars waged by his suzerains, for we find him described as early as A.D. 980, while still engaged in consolidating his position at home, as Indra’s thunderbolt against the strong Chōḷa mountain and as the lion opposed to the Lāṭa elephant, the latter title being possibly an allusion to Bārapa’s conquest of Lāṭa on his behalf. Of Taila’s wars against the Paramāras of Mālwa we hear a great deal in the inscriptions as well as in the literature. The Kauthem plates (A.D. 1003) record that Taila imprisoned Utpala (another name of Muñja), who had shown his prowess in wars against the Hūṇas, the Māravas (the people of Mārwār), and the Chedis.³ A much later record, the Gadag inscription of Vikramāditya, says that Taila slew the valiant Muñja.⁴ The Samgamner grant of Yādava Bhillama II, dated Ś. 922 (A.D. 1000), shortly after the close of Taila’s reign, contains a whole verse stating that by giving Lakshmī a sound thrashing on the field of battle as a punishment for her association with the great king Muñja, Bhillama forced her to take to the life of an obedient housewife in the palace of king Raṇaraṅgabhīma; as has been pointed out by Kielhorn, *raṇa-raṅga-bhīma* is a synonym of Āhavamalla, and stands for Taila II.⁵ Thus the Yādavas, who were formerly the feudatories of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas, not only transferred their allegiance to Taila after his rise to power, but also gave him active assistance in guarding the northern frontier against the aggressions of the Paramāras. Literary tradition on the subject is preserved in the pages of the *Prabandhachintāmaṇi* of Merutuṅga, a work dating from the fourteenth century A.D.⁶ According to this account, Tailapa harassed Muñja’s country by constant raids; when Muñja planned to retaliate, his prime minister Rudrāditya warned him not to advance beyond the river Godāvarī; Muñja disregarded the warning since he had been victorious against Taila on six occasions previously (sixteen according to some manuscripts), and when the minister learnt of this decision, he foresaw defeat and committed suicide by throwing himself into a fire; then Tailapa by force and fraud cut Muñja’s army to pieces, took him prisoner, and bound him with a rope of grass (muñja). Waited on in prison by Taila’s sister Mṛṇālavatī, Muñja had a liaison with this middle-aged widow and was betrayed by her when he confided to her his plan of escape by way of an underground tunnel. He was thereupon subjected to harsh and humiliating treatment, compelled to beg from house to house, and finally beheaded.

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³ *BK*, 170 of 1933-4 (A.D. 993).

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⁴ Ibid., xxi, 167/8 = *EI*, xv, 350, ll. 2-4.

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⁵ *EI*, ii, 215.

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⁶ Tr. by Tawney (1901), pp. 33-6.

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We may be inclined not to treat the romantic tale of Merutunga as history in all its details; but the substance of it is true in the main, and there is little reason to doubt that Muñja lost his life in his Deccan wars; the date of his death may be put somewhere about A.D. 995, the mean date between Amitagati’s dedication of a work to Muñja (A.D. 993-4) and the death of Taila II himself (A.D. 997-8).¹

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¹ EI, i, 228.

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The hostility between the Tamil Chōḷa kingdom of the South and the rulers of Karṇāṭaka had been accentuated by the aggressive wars of Kṛiṣhṇa III in the south in which many of his feudatories took part, and, as already noted, Tailapa may well have been among these. The political revolutions of the Eastern Chāḷukya kingdom of Veṅgi contributed their share further to complicate the tangled skein. The Chōḷas under Rājarāja the Great were rapidly recovering from the confusion caused by the invasion of Kṛiṣhṇa III, and their renovated empire was expanding everywhere with great strides. Rājarāja’s inscriptions mention his conquest of Gaṅgavāḍi and Noḷambavāḍi from A.D. 993 onwards, and there is an inscription of Rājarāja dated A.D. 991 in Mysore, while a Gaṅga official from Kolar is found making an endowment in South Arcot about the same time or a little later. These campaigns of Rājarāja must have brought him into contact with Taila II who naturally claimed this territory as falling within the sphere of his influence. There is an inscription of Āhavamalladeva (Taila) dated towards the close of A.D. 992 from Kogaḷi² in the Bellary District in which he is said to be ruling from the camp at Rodda in the Anantapur District after defeating the Chōḷa king and seizing 150 war elephants from him; naturally little is heard of this from the side of the Chōḷas.

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² SII, ix (i), 77.

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Taila had two sons by Jākavve; the elder was Satyāśraya who succeeded him on the throne in A.D. 997 or soon after. The younger is usually called Daśavarman, sometimes also Yaśovarman, and his wife was Bhāgyavatī, the mother of Vikramāditya V who succeeded Satyāśraya. A daughter of a Chāḷukya Perumāṇaḍideva, Pampādēvī by name, is mentioned in a record bearing the date A.D. 997 as ruling in the Mysore District,³ and one wonders whether she was in fact a daughter of Taila.

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³ EC, iv, Hs. 50.

Satyāśraya

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The reign of Satyāśraya, Irivabeḍanga (a wonder among those who pierce in attack), was marked by a continuation of the policy of aggrandizement initiated by his father. The Chōḷas were the chief enemy; under the illustrious Rājarāja I they were gradually bringing under their sway the whole of Southern India including Ceylon and the Maldives. By the time of Satyāśraya’s accession they had already penetrated far into Gaṅgavāḍi and Noḷambavāḍi, and they fought against Taila and lost some elephants to him at Rodda during their first encounter with him. They were preparing to extend their power into the Andhra country by assisting the exiled sons of Dānārṇava to regain their ancestral throne of the Veṅgi kingdom, a task which they completed by about A.D. 999–1000, the date of the beginning of Śaktivarman’s reign in Veṅgi. This expansion of the Tamil power, which threatened to hem in the Karṇāṭaka kingdom on its southern and eastern frontiers, was by no means to the liking of Satyāśraya, since he now had to face the prospect of a fight on two fronts in order to escape being overwhelmed by the enemy. Satyāśraya appears to have adopted the plan of a drive towards the Veṅgi kingdom, where Śaktivarman had just been installed as king and had not yet had time to consolidate his position, as the best form his offensive could take. Two inscriptions throw light on the probable course of events. One of them, dated in January A.D.

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1005,¹ says that Satyāśraya was encamped at Śrīparvata at the time—obviously stationing himself in a central position between the two war fronts. The second record, dated shortly after in Ś.928 (A.D. 1006), is a Telugu inscription from Chebrolu² in the Guṇṭūr District; it states that a prominent Brahmin general of Satyāśraya called Bayala Nambi was in camp at that place after he had set fire to the two fortresses of Dannaḍa (Dhānyakaṭaka) and Yenmadala. The Chōḷa ruler counteracted this Chāḷukya invasion of Veṅgi by sending a powerful force under the crown prince Rājēndra to ravage the home territory of the Chāḷukya monarch. In the picturesque language of the Hoṭṭūr inscription (A.D. 1007–8),³ ‘Rājēndra Vidyādhara, the constant joy of Rājarāja, the ornament of the Chōḷa family, the hundred-fold Chōḷa, crossed the frontier with an army 900,000 strong, encamped at Donavur, plundered the entire country, slaughtered women, children, and Brāhmans, and caught hold of the women of the country and ruined their caste’. Much of this is of course mere propagandist exaggeration or invention, not after all so new an art as we are apt to imagine. But Donavur is doubtless the modern Donur in the Bijapur District, and the admission in a Chāḷukya inscription that a large Chōḷa army had penetrated to the heart of the Chāḷukya kingdom and begun to ravage the country and harry its inhabitants is clear indication that Satyāśraya had no easy time of it.

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The invasion of Veṅgi had invited a terrible reprisal. The same Hoṭṭūr inscription records also that Satyāśraya succeeded in turning back the Chōḷa forces and inflicting on them a considerable loss in men and material. The Tanjore inscriptions of Rājarāja refer to presents made to the Big Temple out of the booty gained in the Chāḷukyan war.⁴ And the early inscriptions of Rājēndra’s reign contain hints which supplement the information yielded by the Hoṭṭūr inscription of Satyāśraya. They say that with his powerful army Rājēndra captured Iḍai-tuṛai nāḍu (the doab country), Banavāsi surrounded by a continuous belt of forest, Koḷḷipākkai whose ramparts were encircled by śuḷḷi trees, and Maṇṇaikkaḍakkam redoubtable in its strength. Iḍai-tuṛai-nāḍu is the Raichur doab, Banavāsi is the well-known Kadamba capital, Koḷḷipākkai is the modern Kulpak about 45 miles north-east of Hyderabad, and Maṇṇaikkaḍakkam is the Mānyakhēṭa of the Sanskrit inscriptions, Mālkhed, the capital of the Chāḷukyas at this time. The Chōḷa invasion appears then to have been even more formidable than the Hoṭṭur record describes it as being, and it resulted for a time, at least, in the transfer of much territory and several important cities, including the capital, into the hands of the invader.

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The fighting round Kulpak was doubtless an engagement with the Western Chāḷukyan forces withdrawing from Veṅgi for the defence of the home country which had been overrun by the forces under Rājēndra, who had captured Banavāsi and the Raichur doab and was heading for the capital itself.

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¹ SII, xi (i), no. 50, pt. i.

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² SII, vi, 102.

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³ EI, xvi, 73.

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⁴ SII, ii, no. 1, para. 92.

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Satyāśraya bore the title Akalaṅka-charitra (of spotless conduct); he had a daughter who was married to the Nolamba Pallava chieftain Iriva Noḷambādhirāja; she is described in detail as the granddaughter of Taila, the daughter of Satyāśraya, and the younger sister (tamge) of Vikramāditya in the Alūr inscription of Vikramāditya¹—she was really his cousin—and her name is given as Mahādēvī in another inscription;² though the second inscription calls her Sattigaṇaṇungi, there is little room for doubting her filial relation to Satyāśraya. Very different is the case of Kundamarasa who figures as the ruler of Banavāsi 12,000 and Santalige 1,000 in the records of the reigns of Vikramāditya V and his successor Jayasimha II Jagadekamalla, and is often described as the son of Irivabeḍangadeva; here the title ‘son’ is evidently commemorative of the king’s appreciation of loyal and valuable service rendered by a feudatory, and the other title ‘Tiguḷaramāri’,³ ‘death to the Tamils’, which he alone bears among all the other feudatories, may imply that this service was rendered during the inroads of the Chōḷas into Karṇāṭaka. If he was in fact a real son of Satyāśraya, it would be difficult to account for the form in which the relationship is repeated in so many inscriptions while he neither possesses the Chāḷukya praśasti, sits on the throne, nor figures in the official genealogies of the dynasty.⁴

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¹ EI, xvi, 27-31.

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² SII, xi (1), no. 61.

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³ EC, vii, S. 285.

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⁴ This point was first argued out at some length by Mr. V. Venkatarayan, M.A., in his unpublished thesis on the Chāḷukyas of Kalyāṇi.

Vikramāditya V

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Satyāśraya was succeeded in A.D. 1008 by his nephew Vikramāditya V, who had a short reign of only six or seven years. The inscriptions of his reign are few and contain no indications of any great events. The Kauthem plates dated very early in the reign have no fewer than four verses consisting merely of rhetorical praise of the king's good rule, and of his fame and liberality which attracted many good people to Kuntala. His sister Akkādevī figures in A.D. 1010 as the ruler of Kisukād 70 and receives high praise as being an incarnation of Lakshmī (the goddess of fortune), a distributor of innumerable gifts, endowed with wisdom, a shining example of truthfulness and noble conduct.¹ This is just the beginning of the long public career of this celebrated princess whom we shall have occasion to mention again in dealing with the reigns of the successors of Vikramāditya V.

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¹ *EI*, xv, 75 ff.

Ayyana

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Vikramāditya was succeeded about A.D. 1015 by his younger brothers Ayyana and Jayasimha II. The only evidence that Ayyana II ever occupied the throne is his inclusion in the succession lists in some late eleventh- and twelfth-century inscriptions;² he cannot have reigned for more than a few weeks at most and no inscription of his has come to light so far. The earliest date found in Jayasimha's inscriptions is A.D. 1015 and the latest A.D. 1042.³

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² *IA*, 1918, 287-8.

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³ Earliest Bk, 92 of 1935-6 (*ARE*), latest *SII*, xi (i), no. 75.

Jayasimha II

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Jayasimha's reign was a period of much fighting on many fronts. The Paramāra king Bhoja began a war against him to avenge the fate of Muñja, and success attended his enterprise for several years, during which certain territories in the north of the Chālukyan empire seem to have changed hands. Bhoja celebrated on two occasions, about A.D. 1020, festivals in commemoration of his victory in and his occupation of the Konkaṇ;⁴ and the undated Kalvan plates of Yaśovarman⁵ mention Karṇāṭa, Lāṭa and Konkaṇa among the conquests of Bhoja, and show us Yaśovarman himself ruling in the Nāsik District as a feudatory of Bhoja, holding a fief comprising 1,500 villages. Other inscriptions⁶ of Bhoja dated in 1020 and a little later show him making donations to Brāhmans who had come over from Vātāpi and Mānyakheṭa in the Karṇāṭaka country. On the other side, Jayasimha is described in a Belagamve inscription of A.D. 1019⁷ as ‘moon to the lotus which was king Bhoja’ and in more detail he is said to have subjugated and ground down the seven Mālavas—doubtless an exaggerated claim in face of the inscriptions of Bhoja cited above. In the Miraj plates,⁸ A.D. 1024, it is stated that Jayasimha had seized all the possessions of the overlords of Konkaṇa and was staying in his victorious camp in the neighbourhood of Kollāpura (Kolhāpur), and planning further conquests in the northern territories. In the campaign that resulted in the reconquest of Konkaṇa from Bhoja the illustrious general Chāvaṇarasa must have borne a prominent part, since he is described as a pupil of Singaṇa (Jayasimha II), the comet to Konkaṇa (Konkaṇadhūmaketu), and the destroyer of Pannala, the well-known fortress in Konkaṇ about twelve miles to the north-west of Kolhāpur.¹ The Kadamba chieftain Chaṭṭuga or Chaṭṭa is said to have put the Mālava to flight, drunk the waters of the Gautama-gamge (Godāvari) with great *éclat*, and earned for himself the title ‘guardian of the highland’ from Jayasimha.² Kundamarasa, it seems, also had a share in the victory as he is said to have stampeded Bhoja’s elephants.³ We may believe that Jayasimha succeeded in recovering the territorial losses he had incurred earlier at the time of Bhoja’s invasion; but we have no evidence regarding the results of the *digvijaya* in the north for which Jayasimha was drawing up plans at Kolhāpur in 1024.

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⁴ *EI*, xi, 182, l. 10; xviii, 321. The story recorded in the *Bhojacaritra* (*IA*, 1919, 117) that king Bhoja captured Taila and subjected him to the same treatment as Muñja had received from Taila, deserves no credence whatever and should be rejected summarily as a palpable fabrication.

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⁵ *EI*, xix, 69-75.

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⁶ *IA*, vi, 54.

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⁷ *IA*, v, 15-17.

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⁸ *EI*, xii, 303.

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¹ *EI*, xvi, 75 ff.

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² *EI*, xvi, 357, v. 10, Inscr. of the reign of Vikramāditya VI.

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³ *EI*, xv, p. 331, v. 1.

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The Chōḷa Rājēndra was, however, the really formidable enemy against whom Jayasimha had to contend. The Miraj plates declare that Jaysimha had chased the strong ruler of Drāviḍa, the Chōḷa, out of Chālukya territory before he fixed his camp at Kolhāpur in A.D. 1024. Earlier still, the Belagāmve inscription describes Jayasimha as early as A.D. 1010 as ‘the lion to that elephant, Rājēndra-Chōḷa’. On the other side, the official *praśasti* of Rājēndra I Chōḷa mentions for the first time in the ninth year of his reign, A.D. 1021, the incidents of his war with Jayasimha; it asserts that Jayasimha turned his back out of fear at Muśangi and went into hiding, incurring much ignominy, and that Rājēndra achieved great fame by the capture of vast treasures totalling seven and a half lakhs, together with Raṭṭāpaḍi. In the Sanskrit section, the Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates of Rājēndra call him ‘the sole destroyer of the line of Taila’ and, almost in the terms of the Tamil *praśasti* just cited, affirm that the king of the Raṭṭa country fled before Rājēndra, abandoning all the inherited wealth of his family together with his own fair fame, and that his army followed his example; but neither Jayasimha nor Muśangi is expressly named here.⁴ Other inscriptions convey hints regarding the parts played by generals on either side, and the various campaigns in which they took part. Among the titles of Chāvaṇarasa, the Chālukya general already mentioned in connexion with the war in Konkan, are two which mean ‘the grinder of Balayeyapaṭṭana’—a fortress on the west coast (Baliapatam)⁵—and ‘the breaker of the pride of the fortress of Bijevāḍa’.⁶ Mādhavarāja, the second son of Keśavarāja, won the admiration of Singa (Jayasimha II) by his successful handling of a strong cavalry force during the war against the Chōḷas.⁷ A number of short inscriptions in Tamil and Kannaḍa from Kottaśivaram in the Anantapur District dated A.D. 1022 record the titles of a Chōḷa commander, among which occurs the expression Jayasingakulakāla, death to the family of Jayasimha;¹ an undated inscription says that the king of Veṅgi fled when he heard that the Chōḷa monarch had ordered the advance of this general.²

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⁴ *SII*, iii, no. 99, 105, 107.

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⁵ *EI*, xvi, 77.

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⁶ *EI*, xvi, 75, Hoṭṭur inscription A.D. 1037.

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⁷ *SII*, xi (1), no. 76.

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¹ Cōḷar, i, 551; ARE, 23, 24, 30, and 31 of 1917.

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² Cōḷar, i, p. 279 n.; ARE, 751 of 1917.

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These inscriptions describe a pitched battle at Maski (Muśangi) about A.D. 1020-1, and operations in the Gaṅga and Veṅgi countries about the same time. The genesis of these events was clearly the attempt of Jayasimha soon after his accession to recover the territory lost to the Chōḷas during the wars of Satyāśraya’s reign, and circumstances seem to have favoured his designs for a time. Rājēndra I Chōḷa was busily engaged in wars in the south against the Pāṇḍyas, the Keralas, and the Sinhalese during the years A.D. 1015-20, whilst the death or retirement of Vimalāditya in Veṅgi about 1019 also gave Jayasimha the chance of interposing in the affairs of that kingdom with a view to setting up one of his own nominees on the throne and keeping out Vimalāditya’s son Rājarāja who was the son of a Chōḷa princess, full of gratitude to the Chōḷas for their having restored his line to the throne of Veṅgi scarcely twenty years before. Jayasimha at first met with considerable success. He recovered the Raichur-doab, crossed the Tuṅgabhadrā, and spread his rule farther south into the Bellary District,³ and possibly even into part of Gaṅgavāḍi. The praise of Kundamarasa⁴ for putting to flight the elephant corps of the Chōḷa and Gaṅga also points to the same conclusion. In Veṅgi the rival claimant he set up against Rājarāja captured the fortress of Bezwāḍa with the aid of Chāvaṇarasa, and found sufficient following to be able to delay the formal installation of the legitimate ruler for two or three years. At this time Jayasimha had in fact some justification for comparing himself to a lion and his enemy Rājēndra to an elephant. But when Rājēndra actively turned his attention against Jayasimha and sent two forces simultaneously into the field, one in the direction of Gaṅgavāḍi, Nuḷambavāḍi, and Iḍaiturai-nāḍu (the Raichur-doab), and the other into Veṅgi for the relief of Rājarāja, the situation was completely transformed and the recent successes of Jayasimha were reversed. In Veṅgi Rājēndra’s success seems to have been complete; the rival king, probably Vijayāditya VII, fled the country, and Rājarāja celebrated his coronation peacefully in A.D. 1022. In the West, the fact that the chief battle was fought at Maski in the Raichur-doab shows that the forces of Jayasimha were rolled back to the north of the Tuṅgabhadrā; the final result of the battle itself can only be correctly estimated by striking a balance between the rival statements of the Chōḷa and the Chāḷukya inscriptions; the former affirming the flight of Jayasimha from the field, while Jayasimha himself claims to have driven out the Chōḷa. The battle may indeed have been a Chōḷa victory, but it was not followed up, and it would seem that both parties tacitly recognized the Tungabhadrā as the frontier between their respective kingdoms.

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³ SII, ix (1), no. 80.

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⁴ EI, xv, p. 331, v. 1.

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But for the casual mention of the plan of a northern campaign in the Miraj plates dated A.D. 1024, we hear no more of any fighting in the remaining twenty years or so of Jayasimha’s reign, whilst several inscriptions from various parts of his empire attest the flourishing condition of the arts of peace under the administration and patronage of the emperor and his several feudatories. We hear occasionally of minor local conflicts among these feudatories; thus an inscription¹ from Shimoga District in Mysore dated Ś.959 (A.D. 1037) records the death of Ālayya, the ruler of Banavāsi 12,000 and Santalige 1,000, in a fight with the Maṇḍalika Kundama on the plain near the agrahāra Kuppagadde, where a temple was constructed in his memory by his son Jayasimhadeva, who, in his turn, bears titles which show that he kept the Malepas and the Beḍar and Kurumbar from disturbing the peace of the country. The king’s sister Akkādevī is said to have been as courageous as Bhairavī and this may mean that by Ś.944 (A.D. 1022), the date of the inscription,² she had actually herself taken part in active fighting if indeed the epithet be not a mere compliment by a court poet. Some fifteen years later Akkādevī is found ruling Banavāsi 12,000 together with Mayūravarmadeva, who held sway over Pānugal 1000 in addition; there is reason to believe they were husband and wife, and that Toyimarasa, the son of Akkādevī, was a child of this marriage.³

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¹ EC, viii, sb. 184.

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² IA, xviii, 270-3.

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³ EI, xvi, 75 ff. An inscription of Ś. 960 from the Kallapa temple in Hangal tāluk mentioning Lakmādevī (Akkadevi?) and Mayūravarma together and saying that the latter was ruling Panugal as ēkabhōga is preserved in the Local Records of the Mackenzie collection. (V. Venkatarayan.)

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Jayasimha himself is called Jagadekamalla, ‘the sole wrestler of the world’, in most of his inscriptions. Two of his queens are known: (1) Suggaladevī, who is found making a gift in A.D. 1029 to a Pāśupata-āchārya, Brahmarāśi-Paṇḍita,⁴ and who figures in the legends of the Basava-purāṇa as the author of the conversion of her lord king Desinga from Jainism to Śaivism—a transparent copy this of the Tamil story concerning Mangayarkkaraśi, the Chōḷa princess who with the aid of Jñānasambandar secured the conversion of her husband, the Pāṇḍya king Neḍumāṛan, from the Jaina to the Śaiva faith;⁵ and (2) Devaladevī, a Noḷamba princess, possibly the sister of Udayādityadeva, as we may guess from an inscription recording the disposal in the Ganges of the corporeal remains of her mother Noḷambamahādevī and the gift made by Devaladevī in the presence of Udayāditya to the Brāhman who had returned after his journey to the Ganges.⁶ A daughter of Jayasimha, Hammā or Āvalladevī by name, was married to the Seuṇa Bhillama III, who began by being hostile to Jayasimha, probably under the influence of Paramāra Bhoja, but subsequently recognized this monarch's suzerainty and entered into the alliance with his daughter; he is seen ruling his hereditary dominions in A.D. 1025 from his capital Sindinagara, Sinnar in the Nāsik District.¹

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⁴ Bk, 25 of 1936-7.

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⁵ DKD, p. 437, n. 5, and Pāṇḍyan kingdom, pp. 53-5.

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⁶ SII, ix (i), nos. 91, 92.

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¹ DKD, pp. 437, 514-15; IA, xii, p. 120, v. 9, xvii, p. 117.

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The Chālukya capital was still located at Mānyakhēṭa, the chief city under the Rāshṭrakūṭas; the Chōḷa inscriptions which mention this city are silent about Kalyāṇi up to the very end of Rājēndrachola's reign (A.D. 1044). Other subsidiary capitals where Jayasimha is seen camping at different times are: Ēṭagiri, the same place as Yātagiri, and Koḷḷipāke in the Hyderabad State; Hoṭṭalakere, now represented by Daṇṇāyakana Kere in the Bellary District; and Ghaṭṭadakere (A.D. 1038).² Kalyāṇi itself figures as one of the *neleviḍus* in an inscription dating towards the close of Jayasimha's reign.³

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² EC, vii, Sk. 153.

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³ Ibid., xii, Si. 37, also SII, xi (i), no. 69, though the date is suspicious and the inscription possibly a late copy.

Somēśvara

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Jayasimha was followed on the throne by his son Somēśvara I who held the titles Āhavamalla and Trailokyamalla, and whose inscriptions occur from Ś. 964 (A.D. 1042 onwards).⁴ Bilhaṇa credits Somēśvara with having ‘made the city of Kalyāṇa’ and beautified it so that it excelled all other cities in the world, whilst the Chōḷa inscriptions begin to mention Kalyāṇi as the capital of the Chālukyas during this reign, and call it an ancient city; we have already noticed inscriptions mentioning Kalyāṇi as a *neleviḍu* (permanent camp) earlier than Somēśvara's reign; clearly then Somēśvara ‘made’ the city not in the sense of having founded it for the first time, but in that of having adopted it as capital of his empire, adorned it with many new buildings, and added to the amenities of life available there.⁵

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⁴ Bk, 69 of 1934-5.

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⁵ Vik, ii, 1-25.

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A Kannaḍa verse in an inscription from Nander⁶ (in the Hyderabad State) dated Ś. 969 (1 April, A.D. 1047) states that Somēśvara took the lives of the enemy kings of Magadha, Kalinga, and Anga; forced the kings of Konkaṇa to come and prostrate themselves at his feet by the ferocity of his attack; caused even the proud Māḷaveśvara to supplicate to him in his own city of Dhārā; conquered the Chōḷa in battle, and won over the kings of Veṅgi and Kalinga to his side. The same inscription mentions the Brahman general Nāgavarma, who was the king's right-hand man in all his principal wars, and gives him the following significant titles: Vindhyādhipamalla-śiracchedana, Sevaṇadiśāpaṭṭa, Chakrakūṭa-kālakūṭa, Dhārāvarsha-darpōtpāṭana, and Māra-simgha-madamarddana.

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⁶ The details are taken from Mr. V. Venkatarayan's index of the unpublished Chālukya inscriptions of the Hyderabad Museum.

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The opening statement in the verse, viz. the execution of the unnamed kings of Magadha, Kalinga, and Anga, seems to be mere *praśasti*, not history.

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It will be noticed that Kalinga recurs at the end of the verse in a more credible context. A war in Konkaṇa, an invasion of Mālwa which reached Dhārā, and the continuance of the war with the Chōḷas assisted by a diplomatic triumph in Veṅgi and Kalinga, marked the early years of Somēśvara’s reign according to this verse. The enumeration of Nāgavarma’s exploits gives a glimpse into other minor wars of the same period, which, like that in the Konkan, were obviously campaigns against recalcitrant vassals in different parts of the far-flung and loosely knit empire. The exact chronological order of these occurrences is by no means easy to decide.

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The war in Konkaṇa is attested by an inscription from Nāgai (A.D. 1058) stating that Madhusūdana, the son of Kālidāsa, won successes in Konkaṇa and Mālava.¹ It seems probable that Nāgavarma’s campaigns against the Seuṇa (Yādava) who fled before him and the Vindhya chieftain Malla whom he decapitated form part of the extensive campaign of Madhusūdana which ranged from the Konkan to Dhārā. We seem to have here a later stage in the wars between the Chāḷukyas and Bhoja which had begun under Jayasimha. The Konkaṇas, the Seuṇa, and the Vindhya chieftain Malla may perhaps have been in league with Bhoja, or at least have acknowledged his supremacy, and thus have become proper objects for attack by the Chāḷukyan generals. While the Nander inscription implies that Bhoja’s submission was actually received in the city of Dhārā, the Nāgai record cited above states that this city was burnt and Māṇḍava captured; the Yēūr inscription of Vikramāditya VI’s reign says that the king of Mālava repeatedly sought safety and peace in Maṇḍapa;² this may mean that he was forced to abandon Dhārā for Māṇḍava, or it may be simply a play on the name of the city, for maṇḍapa also means any open pavilion or temporary structure. Bilhaṇa has a number of verses in his poem which clearly state that Dhārā was attacked and that Bhoja had to flee, but perhaps witness to little more than that.³ The Nāgai inscription also mentions the storming of Ujjayinī with its strong ramparts, and the burning of the city on that occasion; this incident is mentioned in the same verse⁴ as the attack on Dhārā and Māṇḍava, but after a reference to the firing of Kāñchī and the beheading of the Chōḷa; so it seems probable that Bhoja courted a second raid into his territory from his suzerain by his attempts to throw off his allegiance while Somēśvara was deeply involved in the Chōḷa war. An inscription of A.D. 1066 from Hoṭṭūr calls the Mahā-maṇḍaleśvara Jemarasa the fire of death to Bhoja,⁵ which description may well have been a title won in some other war with Bhoja later than that which fell in the opening years of the reign of Somēśvara. The verse from the Yēūr inscription alluding to this campaign also says that the king of Kanauj had to resort to the caves of the Himālayas—but this seems to be a gross exaggeration, though there is in fact some indication in contemporary inscriptions that the Cāḷukya forces did actually penetrate as far as the Gurjara kingdom in the north. Altogether we may safely assume that Somēśvara’s generals succeeded in re-establishing his authority pretty firmly over the whole country south of the Narmadā; the invasion of Mālwa and the raid on Dhārā were by way of teaching a lesson to Bhoja, who had to submit temporarily to Cāḷukya overlordship and to give up all designs of meddling further in Deccani politics as he had done at the beginning of his reign. Possibly the Cāḷukya power also extended far to the east through the southern districts of the modern Madhya Pradesh into Southern Kosala and Kalinga.

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¹ Hyd. Arch. Ser., no. 8, p. 13, v. 43.

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² IA, viii, 11 ff.

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³ i, 91-6.

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⁴ v. 17.

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⁵ EI, xvi, 81.

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The general Nāgavarma is described as deadly poison to Chakrakūṭa and the uprooter of the pride of Dhārāvarsha. These epithets are mementos of a campaign against the Nāgavaṁśi ruler, who had his capital at Chakrakūṭa in the modern ‘Bastar state’ in the Madhya Pradesh; we shall come across Dhārāvarsha and his relations fighting on the side of their Cāḷukyan suzerains during the incessant warfare against the Chōḷas which dominates the political history of the reign of Somēśvara I. The other title of Nāgavarma, the destroyer of the pride of Mārasimgha, implies some temporary trouble near the capital which was soon and swiftly overcome. In an inscription about a year later than the Nander record, the Raṭṭa feudatory Anka claims also to have fought successfully against Mārasimha.¹ We have also inscriptions of a Mārasimgha Prabhu who was the father of Liḷādēvī, a queen of Somēśvara, which are dated in Ś. 971 and 985 (A.D. 1049 and 1062-3);² the identity of the Prabhu with the opponent of Anka and Nāgavarma is pretty certain. We have at present no records to inform us how and why Mārasimgha first made himself obnoxious to his overlord; but it is clear that he soon learnt his proper place, settled down to the life of a loyal feudatory, and presented his daughter³ to the king as his queen.

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¹ JBBRAS, x, 172 and LR (VV).

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² SII, xi (i), 85, 99.

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³ The relation between Mārasimgha Prabhu and Liḷādēvī is not free from doubt. The inscription mentions Queen Liḷā and then describes him as tasyā māturgurudara-varaḥ Śrī Prabhur-Mmārasimghaḥ. One is led to suspect some mistake here. SII, xi (i), p. 85, l. 27.

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The family of the Kākatīyas who were to rise to prominence more than a century later than the reign of Somēśvara I first begin to be heard of in connexion with the campaigns of this monarch. The dates are not known exactly, since the evidence comes from inscriptions of a later time which record older incidents without any dates. But it is clear that Prola I took part in the wars of Somēśvara against Konkaṇa and Chakrakūṭa as well as in some other minor engagements which made him master of the territory round Warangal. The Kazipet inscription (A.D. 1090) mentions these facts, and adds that in recognition of his services and of his merit as a general victorious in many battles, Trailokyamalla bestowed the Anmakoṇḍa vishaya on him in perpetuity.⁴ The same inscription states that Prola’s son Bēta was a lion to the elephants that were the Mālava and the Chōḷa, a clear reference to Somēśvara’s wars against the Paramāras and the Chōḷas. That Bēta was present with the Chāḷukya expedition which threatened Kāñchīpuram is clear from other records which describe the achievements of Barma, the Kākatīya general of the period. In an inscription from Pillalamarri, Barma is said to have uprooted the tree of the Chōḷa king’s honour by removing the gates of Kāñchī after a hard fight.¹ Another inscription from Palampet refers to the same incident in more poetic terms and says that Brahma—for that is the real name—brought the bride of victory over Kāñchipura face to face with the Kākati-vallabha after drawing aside as it were the curtain, viz. the doors of the city, at the very moment when his musical instruments sounded a peal of melody.² The play upon the word *kākati-vallabha* pleasingly suggests the happy relations between the Chāḷukya emperor and his Kākatīya feudatory.

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⁴ Hyd. Arch. Series, 13, p. 26, vv. 2-4.

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¹ Tel. Ins. Kak. 9, ll. 11-13.

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² Hyd. Arch. Ser., 3, p. 3, v. 11.

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The remaining facts mentioned in the Nander inscription, namely the defeat of the Chōḷa in battle and the winning over of Veṅgi and Kalinga to his own side by Somēśvara, introduce us to a study of his relations with the Chōḷas. And on this subject the Chōḷa inscriptions have much more to tell than the Chāḷukya inscriptions or Bilhaṇa. On both sides the incidents of different campaigns are narrated in inscriptions spread over the reigns of different rulers; sometimes later inscriptions give further details of transactions more summarily stated in records nearer the date of the occurrences, while on the Chōḷa side there are different versions describing what obviously must have been one and the same set of events. It seems best to begin with the Chōḷa inscriptions which at every stage are more nearly contemporary and contain ampler and more precise statements of facts than the corresponding Chāḷukya records.

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In the Chāḷukya-Chōḷa wars of the reign of Jayasimha II we noticed that there were two fronts, one in the east in Veṅgi and the other in the west in the Mysore country and Banavāsi, Bombay-Karnatak, and the Racihur-doab across the Tuṅgabhadrā. This feature persists throughout. After the settlement of A.D. 1022, when Rājarāja Narendra crowned himself king of the Veṅgi kingdom and the Tuṅgabhadrā was tacitly recognized as the boundary between the two empires in the west, there was a lull for two decades until the death of Jayasimha and the accession of Somēśvara I. During this period Jayasimha appears to have quietly encroached on territory beyond the Tuṅgabhadrā, as his inscriptions from the Bellary District³ seem to show; one of his Noḷamba Pallava feudatories claims to be ruling Noḷambavāḍi 32,000 along with other districts in the years A.D. 1032 and 1034.⁴ Chōḷa inscriptions also mention a Chāḷukya palace at Kampili. After his accession Somēśvara seems to have felt strong enough to undertake further aggression against the Chōḷas by attacking Veṅgi, where things were not going too well after Rājarāja’s coronation in A.D. 1022, and where internal dissensions between Rājarāja and his half-brother Viṣṇuvardhana-Vijayāditya apparently gave Somēśvara the opening for an effective thrust against Chōḷa hegemony in that quarter. The Pāmulavāka plates of Vijayāditya dated in his second regnal year state that he dethroned his half-brother Rājarāja after he had ruled for twelve years and crowned himself king on a day in Ś. 952 corresponding to 27 June A.D. 1031.¹ This was indeed an act of rebellion on the part of Vijayāditya and all later inscriptions accordingly omit any reference to this coronation of Vijayāditya and give Rājarāja a continuous rule of forty or forty-one years from the date of his coronation in A.D. 1022; also they do not count the period of Rājarāja’s rule from some three to four years before his abhiṣeka as the Pāmulavāka plates do. That Vijayāditya did not long enjoy in peace the fruits of his successful rebellion is clear both from the relatively small number of his inscriptions and from the statement of the later East Chāḷukyan inscriptions regarding Rājarāja’s rule. But there is every reason to think that Somēśvara employed the frustrated ambition of Vijayāditya as a pawn in his game against the Chōḷas very soon after he came to power; Vijayāditya became a life-long friend of Somēśvara, and when he was not fighting in the east he was entertained as an honoured guest in the court of that ruler and even placed in control of the administration of extensive territories.

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