The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c9.s2.t3: Mangaleśa
The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c9.s2.t3
- Language
- English
Mangaleśa
v1.c9.s2.t3.1
Kirtti-varman was succeeded after his death in A.D. 597-8¹ by his younger brother, possibly a half-brother, Mangaleśa (prosperous lord), whose Mahākūṭa pillar inscription states that the Vaiśākha Paurṇamī of the Sid-dhārtha year (12 April, A.D. 601) fell in his 5th regnal year. While contemporary inscriptions offer no direct explanation for this apparent deviation in the line of succession, those of the Kalyāṇī period contain a stereotyped verse saying that Mangaleśa took upon himself the burden of administration during the nonage of his elder brother’s son and duly returned the kingdom to Satyāśraya when he grew up to be a young man; the verse points the moral at the end with a question asking: ‘who indeed among the Cāḷukyas would swerve from the path of dharma?’ This protestation on behalf of Mangaleśa rouses our suspicion, and it is, in fact, only a belated attempt to gloss over occurrences mentioned in the Aihoḷe inscription of Pulakeśin II which may be reserved for discussion at the end of the reign.
v1.c9.s2.t3.2
¹ IA, xix, 10, and 12 n.
v1.c9.s2.t3.3
Mangaleśa continued the policy of expansion, and one of his earliest wars of conquest was directed against the Kalachuris or Kalatsuris. As this event is mentioned in the Mahākūṭa pillar inscription, it must have occurred before A.D. 602. The Aihoḷe inscription of Pulakeśin II says that the cavalry of Mangaleśa raised canopies of dust on the shores of the eastern and western oceans; there is no evidence to support this rhetorical reference to the eastern ocean, as Cāḷukya power was still, at the close of Mangaleśa’s reign, confined to the western half of the Deccan. Of the Kalachuri war the same inscription says that Mangaleśa obtained on the field of battle the hand of the lady who had brought prosperity to the Kalachuris. The Nerūr grant (undated) of Mangaleśa states that the king put to flight Buddharāja, the son of Śankaragaṇa, who had elephants, horses, infantry, and treasure. And in the Mahākūṭa pillar inscription we read that Mangaleśa made up his mind to conquer the northern quarter, and first of all overcame King Buddha and seized all his wealth; then, eager to plant a religious pillar of victory (*dharma Jayastambha*), he, with his mother’s approval, made the endowments recorded on the Mahākūṭa pillar in favour of Makuṭeśvaranātha—a name which shows that Makuṭa, not Mahākūṭa, is the original name of this celebrated group of temples.
v1.c9.s2.t3.4
From the provenance of the contemporary Kalachuri inscriptions it is clear that a branch of this celebrated dynasty was then ruling a fairly extensive territory comprising portions of Gujerat, the Khandesh, and Malwa; three generations of this line are now known, viz. Kṛishṇarāja, his son Śankaragaṇa, and his son Buddharāja, the foe of Mangaleśa.¹ The Chāḷukyan invasion of the Kalachuri territory was clearly nothing more than a successful raid marked by a battle which ended favourably for the invader and put him in possession of much booty; we have inscriptions of Buddharāja which show that very soon after this invasion, about A.D. 609 and 610, he was ruling in full regal splendour as an independent monarch, and Fleet’s view that as a result of his northern invasion Mangaleśa acquired the whole of the northern territory up to the river Kim, if not to the Mahī, must be given up. There is nothing in the early Chāḷukyan inscriptions² calculated to support the ascription of any permanent results to this campaign.
v1.c9.s2.t3.5
¹ *EI*, ii, 21; ix, 296; vi, 294; xii, 30.
v1.c9.s2.t3.6
² The Kauthem grant (A.D. 1009) and later records imply accession of territory.
v1.c9.s2.t3.7
In Konkan proper Mangaleśa continued his brother’s work with better results, and his reduction of the Revatidvīpa is described in considerable detail in the inscriptions. ‘When he was desirous of taking the island of Revati’, says the Aihoḷe inscription, ‘his great army with many bright banners, which had ascended the ramparts, as it was reflected in the water of the sea appeared like Varuṇa’s forces, quickly come there at once as his word (of command).’³ The later Chāḷukyan inscriptions assert that Mangaleśa had sufficient troops to occupy all the islands and that his forces crossed the sea by a bridge of boats to attack the Revatidvīpa. The Nerūr grant has nothing to say of this island, but mentions that Mangaleśa killed a certain Svāmirāja of Chāḷukyan descent who had been victorious in eighteen battles. It appears probable that after Kīrtti-varman’s conquest of the Konkan, Svāmirāja was posted as viceroy in Revatidvīpa, and that the attack on the island was rendered necessary by his rebellion against the central power. The rebel was killed and his stronghold reduced, and another viceroy already functioning elsewhere in the Konkan, Dhruvarāja-Indravarman, was put in charge of the island after its reconquest
v1.c9.s2.t3.8
³ Kielhorn, *Aihole Inscription*, *EI*, vi, 8.
v1.c9.s2.t3.9
Mangaleśa had the titles Raṇavikrānta, valorous in war, and parama-bhāgavata, most devoted worshipper of Bhagavān (Viṣṇu). He was a great builder, and to him was entrusted by his brother the construction of the Mahāviṣṇu-gṛha at Bādāmi, a cave-temple of wonderful workmanship well-proportioned in all its parts, viz. the ground floor (bhūmi-bhāga), the adjuncts (upa-bhāga), and the upper circuit (upari-paryanta). He endowed the temple at the time of the consecration of the image of Viṣṇu after the construction was completed, and later. But he was no narrow sectarian, and Makuteśvara, a form of Śiva, was, as noted above, equally the subject of his benefactions. He gets high praise for learning, character, and liberality, and for his great knowledge of the political arts.
v1.c9.s2.t3.10
But the manner in which Mangaleśa’s reign closed does not bear out the high praise bestowed on his ability and character by the court poets who wrote the praśastis. What exactly happened is not easy to determine since the language of the Aihole inscription, our only source of information about this matter, is enigmatic. It says that Mangaleśa’s elder brother’s son, Pulakēśin, who had the dignity of Nahusha, was a favourite of fortune (Lakṣmī); he saw, however, that his paternal uncle was envious of him on that account, and so he made up his mind to lead the life of an exile. But in due course Mangaleśa’s strength was reduced on all sides by the application of the gifts of good counsel and energy with which Pulakēśin was endowed, and Mangaleśa had to abandon three things at the same time, viz. his effort to secure the kingdom for his own son, that vast kingdom itself, and his own life. It is clear that Pulakēśin was kept out of his rights for some time by Mangaleśa’s attempt to secure the kingdom for his own son; probably Mangaleśa made his son Yuvarāja, though Pulakēśin had the better claim and greater fitness for the place.¹ Pulakēśin left his uncle’s hostile court, and from his exile planned and carried out a successful attack on Mangaleśa, killed him, and proclaimed himself king. Who Pulakēśin’s allies were in this enterprise we are not told.
v1.c9.s2.t3.11
¹ EI, vi, 9, n. 1.
v1.c9.s2.t3.12
Whether the differences between Pulakēśin and his uncle arose at the very beginning of the latter’s reign, or after he had reigned in peace for some years and Pulakēśin had had time to grow up, cannot be ascertained; however that may have been, it is clear that Pulakēśin and his successors during the Bādāmi period never recognized Mangaleśa’s right to the throne, and consistently passed over his name in the official genealogies in their charters. But his reign reappears in its proper place in the grants of the Kalyāṇī period and with fairly reliable details and a belated gloss over his conduct towards Pulakēśin—which shows that the history of the reign must have been carefully preserved in archives of some sort.
Cites (1)
- Mahākūṭa pillar inscription (No. 276) — Kannada