The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c11.s8: Appendix C: The Kalachuris of Kalyāṇī
The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c11.s8
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Appendix C: The Kalachuris of Kalyāṇī
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SOME account of the usurpation by the Kalachuris of the Chālukya throne of Kalyāṇī and of the rise of the Lingāyat form of Śaivism during the period of their rule has been given in the section on the Chālukyas of Kalyāṇī, in particular in that part dealing with the reigns of Taila III and Someśvara IV. This Appendix is devoted to a more detailed study of these events.
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The name of the dynasty is written in many ways in inscriptions spread over a vast area and covering several centuries. While Kalachuri is the most usual style, and that most familiar to modern historians, Kaṭachuri, Kalatsuri, Kalachuṭi, Kālachchuri, Kalachurya, Kalichuri, and other forms are known as variants. In later times the family claimed descent from the Purāṇic King Kārtavirya Arjuna, the Haihaya King of Māhiṣmatī, and called themselves Haihayas as well as Kalachuris. The name Kalachuri does not appear to be Sanskritic, and has indeed been connected with the Turkish word Kuluchur, indicating an office of high rank.¹ This, if correct, would point to a foreign origin for the dynasty, and they may well have entered India with the Hūṇas and Gurjaras. We first hear of them in Gujarāt in the latter half of the sixth century A.D. Three kings, Kṛṣṇarāja, his son Saṅkaṭagaṇa, and the latter's son Buddharāja, are named in copper-plate grants; the last came into conflict with the early Chālukya ruler Maṅgaleśa of Bādāmi. Another Bādāmi Chālukya ruler, Vinayāditya (A.D. 681-96), asserts that he defeated the Haihayas; we know that his grandson Vikramāditya II married two Haihaya princesses. These Haihayas, however, seem to have ruled in the well-known Chedi kingdom of Ḍāhala in Central India, a state which included the district of Jubbulpore in the upper Narmadā valley and the now extinct states of Maihar and Nagode, with parts of Rewa and Panna, and had for its capital Tripurī (the modern Tewar in the Jubbulpore District). They ruled there for several centuries and their alternate alliances and conflicts with the Rāṣṭrakūṭas and the Eastern Chālukyas have been mentioned elsewhere in this book.
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¹ *Proceedings, Indian History Congress*, 1943, p. 44.
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The Kalachuris of Kalyāṇī were obviously scions of the same family or clan, but the exact lines of connexion are no longer traceable. The Kalyāṇī branch developed its own traditions, and these are found embodied in a Kannaḍa inscription found at Harihar.² The founder of the family is said to be a certain Kṛṣṇa, an incarnation born of a Brāhmin girl who conceived by Śiva in a dream. Passing himself off as a barber, he contrived to kill at Kālañjara an evil-minded king who practised cannibalism, and to take possession of the nine-lakh Ḍāhala country. He thus became an ornament of the 'Kalachuri' family, *kala* (*kaḷi*) meaning 'to kill' and *churi* (*surige*) meaning 'a razor' in Kannaḍa, as Fleet pointed out³—one of the many obvious instances of euhemerism in Indian legends. Many kings of his line followed one another on the throne; finally arose Kannama-Deva who had two sons, Bijjaḷa, the elder, who succeeded him in the sovereignty, and Sandarāja, to whom were born four sons: Ammugi, Saṅkhavarman, Kannara, and Jogama; of these Ammugi ruled first and was followed by Jogama. To Jogama's son Permāḍi was born Bijjaḷa, the reigning king at the time when the record was drawn up. There are other accounts, equally fictitious and with names differing from those given above, of the early kings; these are found in the inscriptions of Bijjaḷa, and need not be reproduced here. But it is worth noting that some of these later accounts are simpler and closer to the facts than those earlier in actual date. Thus, as Fleet points out,¹ two grants of Sovideva and Siṅghaṇa dated respectively A.D. 1174 and 1183 simply state that Jogama was the son of a certain Kṛishṇa of the Kalachuri family, and say nothing at all about any antecedents; while an inscription of Bijjaḷa's second son, Saṅkama, dated in A.D. 1178 at Kukkanur in the Hyderabad State, merely says that in the lineage of the Kalachuris, who were believed to be descended from the God Īśvara (Śiva), there was a 'certain king Kannama. His sons were Bijjaḷa and Rājala. And the son of Rājala was the Jogama of the other accounts.'
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² *EC*, xi, Dg. 42.
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³ *DKD*, 468, n. 2.
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¹ *DKD*, 468-9.
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The first names that occur in all the accounts alike, and can thus be considered authentic, are those of Jogama and his descendants of the Kalyāṇi branch, and may be set forth as follows:
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The banner of the Kalachuris was a golden bull (*suvarṇavṛishabha-dhvaja*), and they were heralded in public by the sounding of the *ḍamaruka* or double-drum of the shape of an hour-glass. Their crest is not particularized in any of our sources. They are generally styled *Kālañjara-puravarādhīśvara*. Kālañjara, the scene of the legendary achievement of the barber-founder of the line, is a well-known hill-fort in the Banda District (Uttar Pradesh) in Bundelkhand, the heart of the ancient Kalachuri territory proper. The Kalachuris of Dāhala regularly used the mysterious Traikūṭaka era beginning in A.D. 248-9, and the era is on that account often called the Kalachuri or Chedi era, Chedi being another name for the Dāhala country.
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Of Jogama we have no historical details. Permāḍi, also called Hemmāḍiyarasa and Paramardi, is found ruling as a feudatory of Chālukya Somēśvara III in Tardavāḍināḍu in the Bijapur District in 1128.²
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² *IA*, xii, p. 12, no. 57; *BK*, 8 of 1930-1; also 95 of 1936-7.
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Permāḍi's son was Bijjaḷa, whose correct name appears to have been Vijayāditya,³ as would appear from a record of A.D. 1149. It occurs also as Bijja, Bijjaṇa, Vijjaḷa, and Vijjaṇa. In the course of his ambitious and eventful career he assumed the biruda of Tribhuvanamalla and the titles *Bhujabalachakravartin*, ‘the emperor of the strong arm’, and *Kalachurya-chakravartin*, ‘the Kalachurya emperor’, which were sometimes combined into *Kalachurya-bhujabala-chakravartin*. Among his other designations may be noted *Sanivāra-siddhi* and *Giridurga-malla*, apparently adopted from the Hoysalas, and *Niśśaṅkamalla*.¹ As Bijjaḷa ended his career by usurping the sovereignty of the Chāḷukyas, it will be interesting to trace the successive steps by which he reached this final goal of his ambition.
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³ *MAR*, 79 of 1928.
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¹ EC, viii, Sk. 123.
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The earliest reliable mention that we have of Bijjaḷa’, said Fleet,² ‘is in an inscription at Harihar in Mysore: the photograph does not show the date; but the record itself is of the time of the Western Chāḷukya king Jagadekamalla II, and therefore belongs to the period A.D. 1138-9 to 1149; and it may be placed approximately in A.D. 1145. This record does not expressly state that Bijjaḷa—to whom no titles of any kind, subordinate or otherwise, are allotted in it—was a feudatory of Jagadekamalla II; it simply says that, in the time of that king, there was Bijjaḷa, whose servant Vijaya-Pāṇḍya was ruling the Nolambavāḍi thirty-two thousand.’ Inscriptions of Jagadekamalla’s reign dated in A.D. 1147 mention two generals Barmmadaṇḍādhipa and Keśirāja-daṇḍanātha, whom we find again under Bijjaḷa in charge of important offices.³ The fact that in this early inscription Bijjaḷa is not clearly described as a feudatory of the Chāḷukya ruler deserves to be noticed as evidence suggesting at least that even at this early date he was contemplating plans for his eventual usurpation. But the date is not beyond doubt, and there is the possibility that Jagadekamalla, like Jayasiṁha and Jagadekamalla in another record of 1149 noted above, is a mere symbol for the Chāḷukyas.
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² DKD, 471-2.
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³ Ante—under Jagadekamalla II.
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In some early inscriptions of the reign of Taila III the same doubtful formula ‘in the time of Taila III there was Bijjaḷa’ is also followed. For the first time in an inscription of the third year of Taila III (A.D. 1151) from Bijapur there is a formal preamble which expressly refers to the paramountcy of Taila, then reigning at Kalyāṇi;⁴ Bijjaḷa is here shown as a *mahāmaṇḍaleśvara* under the Chāḷukya emperor. But he is already styled Bijjaḷa-kṣoṇipāla and credited with successful campaigns against Mālava, Lāḷa, Nepāḷa, and Ghurjara; whether this is an historical or merely a rhetorical statement is not easy to decide. Bijjaḷa here has also under him the celebrated general Mailāra who was then Governor, assisted by other officers of the Tarddavāḍi thousand (*karaṇas*) in the heart of the Chāḷukya empire.
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⁴ BK, 124 of 1933-4; INKK, 10; also BK, 10 of 1935-6 n.d.
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The feudatory position of Bijjaḷa indicated by the designation *mahāmaṇḍaleśvara* is mentioned in records as late as A.D. 1156-7,⁵ but this fact does not preclude his being described also as the ruler of ‘all the provinces’—*sakala deśagaḷam āḷuttamire*.⁶ There is in addition another inscription in which only the contemporaneity of the two rulers is noted with no indication of their political relationship.⁷ But the trend of Bijjaḷa’s activities is clearly seen from two facts. The inscription from Baḷagamve just cited, which describes him as ruling all the provinces, also records that his *daṇḍanāyaka* Mahādevarasa had charge of the Banavase province together with some others who are described as the mind of Bijjala incarnate—*antaḥkaraṇa-rūpa*. Is it too far-fetched to see here some indication of widespread secret designs entertained by Bijjala against his suzerain—designs which involved the co-operation of many assistants in different parts of the Cāḷukya empire, as it still was? And again, shortly after the date of the Balagamve inscription, Bijjala introduced a reckoning of his own of which the first year was the Dhātu Samvatsara, Śaka Samvat 1079 current—A.D. 1156-7—and assumed the *biruda* of Tribhuvanamalla and the designations of *Bhujabala-Chakravartin* and *Kalachurya-Chakravartin*; the *mahāmaṇḍaleśvara* title is sometimes retained, but the other designations are set forth in a formal preamble of the style customarily employed only in the case of paramount sovereigns.¹ It is clear therefore that Bijjala threw off the yoke of subordination to Taila III in 1156 and set himself up on equal terms with the latter in at least a part of his dominions. An inscription at Hāvēri, although dated as early as the eighth year of Taila III (Dec. 1157), gives Bijjala the full imperial titles, describing him as Mahārājādhirāja Bhujabala Chakravartin Kalachurya Bijjaladeva.² About the same time an inscription at Annigere is dated in the second year of Bijjala without any mention of Taila III.³ The completion of the process of usurpation is seen from inscriptions which give to Bijjala all the imperial titles employed by any of the Cāḷukya emperors and proclaim him as ruling from Kalyāṇī; these titles include *Samastabhuvanāśraya*, *Śrīpṛthvīvallabha*, *Mahārājādhirāja*, *Parameśvara*, and *Parama-bhaṭṭāraka*. Among the earliest of such records must be counted one⁴ dated in his seventh year (Chitrabhānu) on a day corresponding to 16 May 1162.
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⁵ BK, 130 of 1933-4.
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⁶ EC, vii, Sk. 104, 108—*mahāmaṇḍaleśvara* in both; ‘ruling all the provinces’ in 104; Fleet dates it in December 1155, DKD, 473. But his statement that this is ‘the latest record which expressly admits Taila III as the paramount sovereign of Bijjaḷa’ (ibid. 473-4) is no longer true at the present time.
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⁷ EC, viii, Sb. 277, 328, &c.
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¹ The inscr. of 1149 (79 of 1928 MAR) also gives the *Mahārājādhirāja* title besides the name Vijayāditya; was this a case of late engraving of an early transaction?
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² BK, 103 of 1932-3.
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³ 201 of 1928-9; DKD, 474.
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⁴ 14 of 1937-8; for others see DKD, 474-5.
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The exact steps by which Bijjala built up this imperial position for himself, and finally for a time displaced the Cāḷukyas of Kalyāṇī, are not now traceable. The stray hints gained from the inscriptions suggest that he made as much use of diplomacy as of force in the process of his advancement. He seems to have succeeded in detaching several feudatories from their allegiance to the suzerain and to have persuaded them to co-operate with him in his plans. He must have been himself a good soldier and a statesman who inspired confidence in his followers. Inscriptions of Bijjala dated in 1162 mention the expedition of his forces against Tīgarte and the encampment of Bijjala himself at Balligave when he marched out on his campaign for the subjugation of the south.⁵ Another inscription dated the very next year states that Bijjala had extended his sway to the shore of the ocean (*ambudhi-sīme-varam*),⁶ and yet another record from about the same time or even earlier tells us that he subdued the country from the ocean in the south to the Cāḷukya capital in the north—*tenikabdhiye badage-sīme Cāḷukya kaṭakav ene*.⁷ An inscription of A.D. 1163 from Kaḍlevāḍ in the Bijapur District gives him the title, among others, of *Tribhuvanamalla-nijabhuja-vīra-malladeva*;⁸ this title expatiates on the strength of Bijjala’s own arm which made him the unrivalled wrestler of the three worlds. Similarly, another inscription from Muttage (A.D. 1170)¹ informs us that all the kings of the Kalachuri line were famous emperors; but some, lacking ability, were reduced to the status of *maṇḍalikas*; being a strong man Bijjaḷa considered the status of *maṇḍalika* as quite below his rightful position and raised himself, by the power of his army, to that of universal emperor.
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⁵ EC, vii, Sk. 56, 102.
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⁶ Ibid., Sk. 242; also xi, Dg. 35.
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⁷ Ibid., Sk. 123; Rice, *Mysore and Coorg*, 81.
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⁸ BK, 33 of 1936-7.
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¹ 101 of 1929-30; INKK, 31, v. 27.
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The names of the allies who aided Bijjaḷa in his enterprise occur in inscriptions of various dates. Thus the Śilāhāras are particularly praised at the end of one inscription engraved by command of Bijjaḷa himself,² while a Śilāhāra copper-plate grant of A.D. 1191 affirms that it was through the friendship of Vijayāditya of that family that Bijjaḷa reached the emperor's throne.³ Another general, Recha-daṇḍādhipa, a Jaina by faith, is praised highly for having gained the imperial crown for Bijjaḷa.⁴ The same record states that the *Rājya-lakṣmī* of the Chāḷukyas determined to assist King Bijjaḷa, the *tilaka* of the Kalachuris, with her aid and companionship; it also contains an exaggerated eulogium of Bijjaḷa's position, saying that the king of Siṃhala carried his tray, the Nepāḷa king was his perfumer, Kerala was his betel-bearer, Gurjara was his artificer, Turuṣka was his groom, Lāḷa was his valet, Pāṇḍya was his crutch, and Kaliṅga was the attendant on his elephant. It is true that just such laudatory exaggerations occur in many other inscriptions, even those of Bijjaḷa's successors, and so perhaps no special emphasis need be laid on their presence here. We have already mentioned the two generals Barmma and Keśirāja, who rose into prominence under Jagadekamalla but transferred their loyalty to Bijjaḷa. Keśirāja or Keśava-deva was Governor of the Banavase region under Bijjaḷa and also under his son Āhavamalla.⁵ The inscriptions of Bijjaḷa's reign make it clear that he became the ruler of a considerable part of the Chāḷukya empire and won over to his side the majority of its feudatory chieftains. Among his subordinate rulers figure Soma or Somideva of the Kadamba family of Hangal, Vijayāditya of the Śilāhāra family of Karāḍ, Kārtavīrya of the Raṭṭa family of Saundatti, Īśvara of the Sinda family with the hereditary title of ‘lord of Karahāṭaka the best of towns’, Kaliyammarasa of the Jimūtavāhana lineage and Khacara race, and others.⁶
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² BK, 101 of 1929-30; INKK, 33, l. 46.
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³ DKD, 475 and 548.
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⁴ EC, vii, Sk. 197.
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⁵ EC, vii, Sk. 123.
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⁶ DKD, 475-6.
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Bijjaḷa is said in several inscriptions of the time to have ruled from Mangalivedha,⁷ as well as from Kalyāṇi; the former is a place 12 miles from Pandarpur, and not the same as Kalyāṇi as has been sometimes suggested. Mangalivedha is mentioned even more often in the records of Bijjaḷa's successors,⁸ together with other *neliviḍus* such as Modiganur,⁹ Seleyahalli,¹⁰ and so on. It is not easy to decide whether or not this reference to several capitals is an indication of the unsettled state of the country necessitating much movement on the part of its ruler and continual shifting of the centre of administration. In any event the Chāḷukyas were by no means completely extinguished; not only were they able to regain their power some time after the death of Bijjaḷa, when all his sons had in turn proved their incapacity to make use of their opportunities, but even in Bijjaḷa's own time they continued to retain their hold on parts of their former extensive empire. Thus in the decade A.D. 1160-70 Mallideva Chola Mahārāja is seen ruling in the region of the Madaksira *taluk* of the Anantapur District as feudatory to the Chālukya Tailapa III, and when for a time he changes his allegiance it is not to the Kalachuris but to the Chola Kulottunga III that he turns.¹ On the other hand, Vira Pāṇḍya of Uccangi is clearly seen to have definitely transferred his loyalty from the Chālukya to the Kalachuri in the same period.² There is evidence of much fighting and many petty local raids and disturbances; the maintenance of law and order was evidently by no means easy, and there seems to have been a great deal of unauthorized warfare in the outlying districts. Exact details are not forthcoming in most instances, and it is neither possible nor necessary to bring in review all these disorders, though mention may be made of a few outstanding cases. A battle at Kuppatūr,³ battles at Gutti, i.e. Chandragutti, in Banavase, an investment of that place lasting for many years (1158-64),⁴ and a siege of Ginnalagundi in 1166 marking a failure of the Kalachuri forces against a Hoysala *maṇḍalika*,⁵ are the most conspicuous examples of conflict at this time of which we have knowledge.
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⁷ BK, 68 of 1937-8; 110 of 1940-1, &c.
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⁸ BK, 37 of 1936-7.
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⁹ BK, 184 of 1933-4; 101 of 1929-30.
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¹⁰ BK, 42 of 1956-7.
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¹ *SII*, ix (i), nos. 268-9; 117 of 1899; *SII*, vi, no. 553.
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² *SII*, ix (i), nos. 267 (1160) and 293 (1162).
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³ *EC*, viii, Sb. 255.
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⁴ Ibid. Sb. 416, 568, and 287.
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⁵ *MAR*, 1928, no. 81.
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The period of Bijjaḷa’s rule was remarkable for the revival of Śaivism in the form of Vira-Śaivism or Lingāyatism. Of this revival Fleet writes:⁶ ‘The new sect of Śivabhaktas or worshippers of Śiva (were) technically called Vira-Śaivas, i.e. “brave, fierce or strict Śaivas” or “Śaiva champions”, and popularly Lingāyats or Lingawants, i.e. “those who have the *linga* or phallic emblem”. The Lingāyats—using the appellation by which all average members of the sect would describe themselves—are outwardly distinguished from ordinary Śaivas by their practice of carrying about with them a miniature *linga*, usually in a silver box suspended from the neck and hanging about the waist. And the chief characteristics of their faith and practices are adoration of the *linga* and of Śiva’s bull, Nandi, hostility to Brāhmans, disbelief in the transmigration of the soul, contempt for child-marriage, and approval and habitual practice of the re-marriage of widows.’⁷ Some modern students would deny the phallic association of the *linga* and identify it as the symbol of the Supreme Reality as a means to God-realization.⁷ They also contend that some of the ideas underlying Viraśaivism are as old as the Upanishads and the Rigveda, and argue that this religious school antedates by far the time of Bijjaḷa and his contemporary reformer Basava.⁸ We cannot stop to examine such views in detail, but must pass them by with the observation that the evidence relied on does not seem to support the conclusions drawn. It is not strictly true to say that ‘disbelief in the transmigration of the soul’ is a characteristic of the Lingāyat creed; but the Lingāyats do have a firm faith that everyone who takes the *dikshā* (initiation) into their faith in its proper form attains *mukti* (salvation) and is not reborn. In other words, transmigration of the soul is the normal law of life, but it is broken by a person’s acceptance of the Lingāyat creed.
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⁶ *DKD*, 477.
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⁷ A Handbook of *Viraśaivism* by S. C. Nandimath, ch. vii. The Linga.
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⁸ Ibid., *passim*.
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It is indeed exceedingly difficult to discover the true course of events from the mass of contradictory legends, the Lingāyat and the Jaina, which in addition to their complexity belong to different dates, the Jaina accounts being generally later. Fleet's account of the matter still holds good except for some corrections suggested by recent research. It runs in this way. Basava was born of pious Brāhman Śaiva parents, Mādirāja and Mādalāmbikā, of Bagevāḍi (in the Bijapur District). He is believed to have been an incarnation of Śiva's bull Nandi sent down to earth to revive the cult of Śaivism which was just then on the decline. He acquired much knowledge of Śaiva lore even before he was eight years of age, and he refused to be invested with the sacred Brāhmanical thread (*upanayana*); he declared himself a special worshipper of Śiva come to destroy the distinctions of caste. His acts and character attracted the attention of Baladeva, uncle of the boy and prime minister of Bijjala. Baladeva made Basava his son-in-law by giving him his daughter Gaṅgādevi or Gaṅgāmbā in marriage. But the Brāhmans were disturbed by his novel doctrines and began to persecute him. He fled to a village called Kappaḍi, where he received instruction from the god Saṅgameśvara himself. When Baladeva died, Bijjala conferred the office of the minister on Basava, whose ability and virtues had become well known. Basava accepted the appointment, after some demur, in the hope of being better able to propagate his tenets from such a position of authority. Accompanied by his elder sister Nāgalāmbikā he proceeded from Kappaḍi to Kalyāṇi, where he was welcomed with respect and deference by the king, and was installed as prime minister, commander-in-chief, and treasurer—second in power only to the ruler himself; while the monarch, in order to bind his new minister as closely as possible to his person, gave him his younger sister Nīlalocanā to wife. About the same time there was born one Canna-Basava, so called because he was more beautiful than Basava; he was an incarnation of Śiva's son Ṣaṇmukha or Kārttikeya and of the intelligence of the goddess Pārvati, born of the unmarried elder sister of Basava, Nāgalāmbikā, by the working of the spirit of Śiva. Canna-Basava, says Fleet, 'perhaps played a more important part than even Basava himself in the propagation of the tenets of the new sect; for Basava is represented as receiving from him instruction on important points connected with it'.
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Thus supported by his abler nephew, Basava used his official position to initiate vigorous propaganda in favour of the rejuvenated faith which he had espoused, and his efforts in this direction issued in the persecution and sometimes extermination of various other religious sects, including that of Jainism. These proceedings roused the suspicion and mistrust of Bijjala, who is often represented as having been himself a Jain, and there were besides rival ministers like Maṇcaṇṇa who fanned into flame the embers of the king's uneasiness. The crisis came when Bijjala caused two pious Lingāyats, Halleyaga and Madhuvayya, to be blinded; Basava then fled to Kūḍali-Saṅgama and deputed one of his followers, Jagaddeva, to slay the king, which he did in open court with the aid of two of his friends. Civil war ensued. Basava was absorbed into the deity of Kūḍal Saṅgama, and Canna-Basava fled to Ujavi in North Kanara, where he found refuge in a cave. Such, in the main, is the account given in the *Basava-purāṇa*.
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The *Cannabasava-purāṇa* gives a slightly different account, coupled with the impossible date Śaka-Saṃvat 707 (A.D. 785), for the absorption of Basava into Saṅgameśvara; it also says that Canna-Basava succeeded Basava in the office of minister and defeated Bijjala in battle after civil war had broken out, but on the advice of his mother restored Bijjaḷa’s army to life and returned the kingdom to him along with much good advice.
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The Jaina account found in the relatively late *Bijjaḷārayacarita* is very different. Here Basava’s influence on Bijjaḷa is attributed to the fact that he had a very beautiful sister whom the king took as a concubine. Bijjaḷa died from smelling a poisoned fruit presented to him by a Jangama (Liṅgāyat monk) disguised as a Jain, but before he died he had told his son Immaḍi Bijjaḷa that it was Basava who had sent the fruit, and had enjoined him to put the minister to death. Immaḍi Bijjaḷa accordingly ordered the execution of Basava and the destruction of all the Jangams. Basava on hearing of this threw himself into a well and died, while his wife Nīlāmbā poisoned herself. ‘Canna-Basava, however, after Immaḍi Bijjaḷa’s anger had subsided, presented his uncle’s treasure to the king, and was readmitted to favour and to a ministerial office at the court.’
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These contradictory legends easily lend themselves to criticism, and in fact Fleet was inclined to reject everything in them except the mere names of Basava and Canna-Basava.¹ He held that the real restorer of Śaivism was Ekāntada Rāmayya, whose no less miraculous story is narrated in the Ablur inscriptions of a somewhat later date, which we shall presently consider in some detail. He carried his distrust of the Purāṇas so far as to say that the real parents of Basava were not Mādirāja and Mādalāmbikā, as stated in the Purāṇas, but Candirāja of the Kaśyapa Gotra and Candrāmbikā, and that Mādirāja of the Hārita Gotra had really nothing to do with Basava.² But obviously this is a misinterpretation of the Managoli inscription of A.D. 1161 which gives the names of both Mādirāja and Basava, calling the former Māṇikyavallīpara-prabhu, counting him as among the 500 mahājanas of the place, and ascribing to the latter the construction of a temple of Kālideveśvara in the township.³ That this Basava was not actually himself the great reformer, as Fleet thought, has now become clear from the genealogy contained in the Arjunawada inscription of Yādava Kannara (A.D. 1260), which clearly mentions Basava or Sangana-Basava as the younger son of Mādirāja described as *Tardavāḍi-madhyagrāma-Bāgavāḍi-puravarādhiśvara*.⁴ It is probable that Mādirāja, the Māṇikyavallipura-prabhu, is the same as the Bāgavāḍi-pravarādhiśvara of the Yādava record; and it is certain that the Basavas of the two records are two different persons, and that Fleet was mistaken in identifying the Basava of the Managoli record with the celebrated reformer. The name of the reformer Basava’s father is epigraphically confirmed, but not yet that of his mother, Mādalāmbikā of the Purāṇas.
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¹ DKD, 481, 484; EI, v, 244-5.
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² EI, v, 242.
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³ Ibid., 10.
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⁴ EI, xxi, 12 (l. 8) and 16.
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Fleet held that ‘the real person to whom the movement was due and the way in which he started it’ is revealed by inscriptions at Ablur,⁵ and it has accordingly been often stated that Ekāntada Rāmayya was the real originator of the Liṅgāyat movement and that Basava gave it political aid at a relatively later stage. When once the undue distrust of the Purāṇas has been shed and their story has been accepted as true in the main, it becomes clear that Rāmayya was no more than an energetic and earnest follower of Basava’s new creed, which he was prepared to defend with his life as necessary, and this is in fact what the *Basavapurāṇa* implies by saying that Rāmayya heard of Basava's fame and went to Kalyāṇi to meet him.¹ The Ablur inscription E on Rāmayya is dated about A.D. 1200 and describes a great number of supernatural occurrences; there is no reason to prefer its account as more trustworthy than that of the Purāṇas on Basava and Canna-Basava. Briefly the story of Rāmayya is this. He was born of a Śaiva Brāhman family at Alande in the Kuṇṭala country, and by the intensity and exclusiveness of his worship of Śiva acquired the name Ekāntada (single-minded) Rāmayya. At Ablur he was involved in a controversy with the Jains led by the village headman Śaṅka-gauḍa; he cut off his own head and laid it at the feet of the image of Śiva, which had been brought out of the temple for the purpose of the ordeal; after seven days it was restored to him by his gods, safe and sound, without a scar. But the Jains refused to fulfil their part of the agreement; for they had promised to destroy their Jina and set up Śiva in his place if Rāmayya should prevail in the contest. Rāmayya thereupon laid waste the Jaina shrine in face of much opposition, and erected a temple ‘as large as a mountain’ dedicated to Vira-Somanātha. The Jains complained to Bijjaḷa, in whose presence Rāmayya repeated his challenge and offered to cut off his head again if the Jains would wager their eight hundred temples including the Ānesejjeya-basadi at Lakṣmeśvar. Bijjaḷa considered this a fair offer, but the Jains were not willing. ‘So Bijjaḷa, laughing at them, dismissed them with the advice that thenceforth they should live peaceably with their neighbours, and bestowed on Ekāntada Rāmayya, in the public assembly, a jayapatra or certificate of success.’ He also granted a village to the new temple of Vira-Somanātha, and other gifts followed from the Chālukya Vira-Sameśvara IV and Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Kāmadeva of Hangal.²
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⁵ EI, v, 243.
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¹ Thesis, p. 45.
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² EI, v, 244.
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What was Bijjaḷa's attitude to the new movement? What were his own convictions? Both the Vira Śaiva and Jaina literary sources say that Bijjaḷa was a Jain, though the Telugu Basavapurāṇamu calls him a worshipper of Pāṇḍuraṅga.³ There is no clear proof, however, that Bijjaḷa was really a Jain. His family was of Śaiva origin, and the Kalachuri insignia which were strongly Śaiva are not known to have been changed in any way during his reign. His inscriptions and those of his successors generally begin with an invocation of Śiva, Harihara, and so on, and many Śiva and Viṣṇu temples all over the country are known to have been repaired or richly endowed during his occupation by himself and his feudatories and officials. The truth seems to be that Bijjaḷa was a Śaiva of the orthodox traditional type who has been stigmatized as a Jain in the Vira Śaiva sources because he was a heretic from their point of view and was therefore represented by them as having been a member of the Jain faction who were their chief antagonists. The strictly impartial attitude attributed to Bijjaḷa in the final stages of the controversy between Ekāntada Rāmayya and the Jains would seem to give support to this view. As for the Jains, they usually tend to describe all important persons as adherents of their own faith, and naturally not much value can attach to such biased testimony.
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³ Thesis, p. 46.
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To sum up our conclusions regarding the Liṅgāyat movement, we may say that this was originated by Basava himself and that its attack on caste involved a social revolution which shocked society. Ekāntada Rāmayya was one of the earliest and most ardent followers of Basava and became involved in violent controversies with the Jains. This and the fact that Basava apparently used his political position as chief minister in the state to propagate his new ideology made it obligatory for Bijjaḷa to hold the scales evenly between the contending parties. This attitude probably cost him his life as a victim of assassins who conspired to murder him. The stories regarding his persecution of the followers of the new faith must be received with caution. There can be little doubt that in the Karṇāṭaka territory Jainism came off worst as a result of its struggle with the new Śaiva revival during this period.
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The last inscriptions of Bijjaḷa belonging to his twelfth regnal year bear dates in A.D. 1167 or early 1168.¹ Fleet placed Bijjaḷa's abdication in favour of his son Sovideva about this time on the strength of an inscription of Ś. 1091 (Sarvadhāri, Vaiśākha, probably 24 April, A.D. 1168) saying that 'while still happily reigning over the whole earth with undivided lordship and with the single umbrella of sole sovereignty, Bijjaḷa transferred the burden of government to his dear or favourite son Sovideva'. Other inscriptions show that the Sarvajit saṃvatsara was reckoned as the first year of Sovideva.²
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¹ BK, 58 of 1934-5.
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² DKD, 476-7. Rice says: 'Certain inscriptions (Hl. 50, Sk. 197, 119) introduce Bijjaḷa's younger brother Mailugi-Deva and his son Kali-Deva or Kandara, and a Mailugi-Deva, younger brother (probably cousin) of Rāyamurāri Sovi Deva, as if they had sat on the throne. They may perhaps have been associated in the government.' Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions, 81, n. 2.
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Bijjaḷa had also three other sons who ruled one after the other in succession to Sovideva. 'Inscriptions of A.D. 1179 and 1180 at Ron and Sudi in the Dharwar District', says Fleet, 'tell us that by a wife named Echaladevi—who was probably not the mother of Sovideva and others of that group—he had a son Vajradeva, and also a daughter, Siriyādevi, who was married to the Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Chāvuṇḍa II of the Sinda family of Yelubarga'.³
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³ DKD, 477.
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Sovideva (Someśvara was his real name) ruled for ten years (1167-77) bearing full imperial titles. His distinctive biruda was Rāya-Murāri, 'a very Viṣṇu among Kings'. His inscriptions are numerous, but afford little new historical information. One of them, dated A.D. 1176, from Kurugodu (in the Bellary tāluk),⁴ showing a feudatory called Rācamalla then in possession of the fortress, may be evidence of some fresh acquisition in that direction. A record of 1171 states that Sovi-Deva, the Kadamba Governor of Banavase in that year, had thrown the Cangālva king into chains as he had vowed to do; another dated two years later shows how the dispatch of a military force was necessary to collect the land rent.⁵ Inscriptions furnish evidence of the continuance of disturbed local conditions resulting in many breaches of the peace and occasional fighting. One of the queens of Rāyamurāri Sovideva was Sāvaladevi, who is described as dearer to the king than his own life, and who was not only highly skilled in music and dancing but used to display these accomplishments in public.⁶ She had a brother Bhairava expert in conducting orchestras and playing on the brahmavīṇā, and a sister Vācaladevi equally proficient in gīta (song) and nṛtya (dance).
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⁴ SII, ix (i), 296.
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⁵ EC, viii, Sb. 345, 139; Rice, Mysore and Coorg, 81.
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⁶ JBBRA S, xviii, 272-81, esp. 275.
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Sovideva was succeeded by his younger brother Saṅkama, known as Niśśaṅkamalla, 'the wrestler free from apprehension'. He may have been associated with Sovideva on the throne from 1176 onwards, but his reign actually bears dates between 1177 and 1180. The records give him the same paramount epithets as they do to Sovideva, and one of them is full of conventional laudatory phrases,¹ coupled with the statement that the king visited the temple of Dakshina Kedāreśvara in 1179 in the course of a tour of the south which he made by way of recreation, accompanied by his ministers and generals. Among the feudatories named in the inscriptions attributed to this reign are Daṇḍanāyaka Kāvaṇa or Kāvaṇayya, described as ‘the upraiser of the sovereignty of the Kalachuris’ and the Hoysaḷa Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Vīra Ballāḷa II, who, in A.D. 1179, joined with his piriya-arasi (senior wife) Remādevi in making a grant to the god Harihareśvara at Kaulūr in the Hyderabad State.² Kāvaṇayya and Vīra Ballāḷa are mentioned in many other records, of which two are sufficiently noteworthy for mention: Vīra Ballāḷa is seen assuming imperial titles and matching his strength in battle with the Kalachuri forces when Saṅkama invaded the country on the West Coast (kaḍalśīme); whilst Kāvaṇayya is invested with the title Hoysaṇa-diśāpaṭṭa (displacer of the Hoysaṇa) in a record of 1180;³ however, it becomes evident from inscriptions of a later date in which he acknowledges Saṅkama’s suzerainty⁴ that the Hoysaḷa did not in fact come off victor in this encounter. Kāvaṇayya is also said to have uprooted the Velaṇāḍu Cōḍas from their habitations and frightened the Koṅkaṇas (Śilāhāras), but no exact details are forthcoming.
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¹ EC, vii, Sk. 96.
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² DKD, 488.
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³ MAR, 1931, no. 2; EC, vii, Hl, 50.
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⁴ EC, ii, Sb. 124.
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Saṅkama was followed, probably in 1182 or the next year, by a younger brother who is known to us only by his biruda, Āhavamalla, and whose records appear from 1180 onwards, thus indicating that his association with the government began at that date. He is also given the title Vīra-Nārāyaṇa, beside the usual imperial titles including Paramabhaṭṭāraka. Fleet suggests that the kingdom was probably divided between the two brothers in 1179-80, Saṅkama retaining the northern and eastern portions, and Āhavamalla becoming ruler of the country more to the south; but there is no clear proof of this. His latest records are dated in A.D. 1183 and a single copper plate⁵ attests the succession of a younger brother Siṅghaṇa at about the same time. There is little further to record about these brothers except that during their time the Kalachuri power disappears from history and the Chāḷukyas recovered the unity of their kingdom in the manner already described above in dealing with the reign of Chāḷukya Someśvara IV.
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⁵ DKD, 489, C.-p. 3 of 1933-4, ARE.
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Administration and social life under the Kalachuris conformed in general to the Chāḷukya pattern except for the social and religious ferment caused by the Liṅgāyat movement. The impact of this movement combined with the fact that a feudatory dynasty usurped supreme power in the state just about this time seems to have rendered the maintenance of law and order more than usually difficult, and the records of the period give an impression of persistent local disturbances and insecurity, sometimes causing trouble even in the king’s own camp during his tours.⁶ But this atmosphere of general insecurity apparently did not prevent the leaders of society from giving expression to their devotion to the arts of peace in a number of striking foundations, religious and secular.⁷ Keśava-Deva, Governor of Banavase under Bijjaḷa in 1159, erected a temple of Keśaveśvara in Baḷipura (Balagamve); the temple itself seems to have disappeared altogether during the intervening centuries, but the inscription records that timber and stone were transformed in its construction ‘as if striving to add to all the variety of manifestations in Brahmā’s creation’. ‘The *pura* in front of the temple, filled with commodious houses, having cots in each chamber, containing the softest beds, and all manner of vessels, was bestowed on Brāhmans. These and some further grants were made in the presence of the representatives of the five *maṭhas* and three *puras*. The priests of the five *maṭhas* are named. Reference is also made to Brahmapuris. The superintendence of these and of the new *pura* was vested by Keśimayya in his *ārādhya*, the *rāja-guru* Vāmaśakti, son of Gautama and an ornament of the Lākulāgama, who was the head of the Dakṣiṇa-Kedāra-sthāna.’ Incidentally it is worth noting that here and in the other instances which follow we have much evidence regarding the flourishing state of Śaivism of the non-Liṅgāyat variety in this period. Keśava (Keśimayya)-daṇḍanāyaka was again Governor of Banavase under Āhavamalla; he ruled his province in great state and magnificence, and on one occasion he summoned his generals, together with the Baṇañju merchants (the Nānādeśis, Manevarata, and Jōrūpa), and ‘in their presence he assigned the property of Baṇañjigas of Balligāve dying without sons to the god Gavareśvara; that of those who die in the *nagara* to the god Nagareśvara; and in all the five *maṭhas*, the three *puras*, and the seven brahmapuris, in whichever of these unclaimed property may occur, to the god of that quarter’. This ‘work of merit’ was put in hand by the advice of Svāmideva, a councillor of the Governor and a disciple of Vāmaśakti.
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⁶ EC, viii, Sb. 139, and Thesis, p. 55.
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⁷ The details that follow are from Rice, EC, vii, Intn. 27-30.
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Another inscription of Bijjaḷa’s time, dated 1162, mentions a second great minister, Kasapayya-Nāyaka, by whose counsel Bammarasa was appointed ruler of Banavase-nad. Here we obtain a welcome glimpse into the system of administration and the role of the *maṭhas* in higher education. We learn that Bammarasa was controlled by five *karaṇams*, who were royal censors appointed ‘to see that the Lakshmi of Bammarasa’s government was free from adultery’—that is, to ensure his loyalty—and these acted as the five senses of King Bijjaḷa, ‘unmatched in ministerial skill, bold as fierce lions, able in detecting frauds, superior to all opposition’. Bammarasa and his courtiers together with these *karaṇams* were one day discussing *dharma*, and began to extol the Koḍiya-maṭha, the Dakṣiṇa Kedāra-sthāna. Among other laudatory expressions, it is said to be ‘a place for the recital of the four *Vedas* and their *aṅgas*; a place for glosses on Kaumāra, Pāṇinīya, Śākaṭāyana, Śabdānuśāsana, and other grammars; a place for glosses on the six *darśanas* including Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Mīmāṃsā, Sāṅkhya, and Bauddha; a place for glosses on the Lākula-siddhānta, the Pātañjala and other *Yoga-śāstras*; a place for the study of the eighteen *purāṇas*, the *dharma-śāstras*, all poems, dramas, comedies, and every branch of learning; a place where food was freely distributed to the poor, the destitute, the lame, the blind, the deaf, story-tellers, singers, drummers, flute-players, dancers, eulogists, the naked, the wounded, *kṣapaṇakas*, *ekadaṇḍi*, *tridaṇḍi*, *paramahaṃsa* and other mendicants from all countries; a place for the treatment of the diseases of destitute sick persons; a place of security from fear for all living things. Bijjaḷa-Mahārāja having come there at this juncture in the course of his expedition to subdue the south, and being encamped in Balligave, they all repaired to his presence, and by their praises of Dakṣiṇa Kedāra and Vāmaśakti, obtained valuable grants from the king for Dakṣiṇa-Kedāreśvara as well as for temples at Abbalur (Ablur).’
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Other grants to Dakṣiṇa-Kedāra in the reigns of Bijjala's successors, and various foundations elsewhere, are described in similar but less elaborate terms; it is needless to record all these instances in detail here. But it is worth noting that towards the end of the period, round about A.D. 1200, there is evidence that Jainism was still holding its own, for we then hear of the Cārukirti-paṇḍita-deva,¹ this being the title of the Śravaṇa Belgoḷa *guru*, as repairing a Pañca *basti* and obtaining for it a transfer of villages originally granted to another *basti* which was no longer in existence, having perhaps been destroyed during the storm of the preceding contest between the Liṅgāyats and the Jains.²
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¹ *EC*, vii, Sk. 227.
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² The Bibliography is the same as that for the Chāḷukyas of Kalyāṇi, with the addition of an unpublished thesis on 'The Kalachuris of Kalyāṇi and their times' by Mr. G. R. Kuppuswamy Iyengar, B.A. (Hons.), 1944, available in the University Library, Mysore—referred to in the notes as 'Thesis'.