The Chālukyas

Pulakeśhin I founded the Chālukya dynasty in the mid-6th century CE. His grandson Pulakeśhin II — who stopped Harṣha at the Narmada — greatly expanded the kingdom.

His capital was Vātāpi (today's Badami in Karnataka), famous for its Hindu and Jain cave temples. Nearby, the earlier capital Āryapura (later Ayyavole, today's Aihole) has over a hundred Hindu, Buddhist and Jain temples.

One of them, a 7th-century Jain temple on Meguti Hill, has a long Sanskrit inscription praising the Chālukyas, especially Pulakeśhin II. Its author, the court poet Ravikīrti, describes Pulakeśhin II's victories over Harṣha and other kings in very poetic language.

But the book warns that this inscription exaggerates: some of its 'facts' are contradicted by other inscriptions. A court poet praises his own king, so we must check him against other evidence — the same lesson as the Gupta praśhasti in Part 1.

Xuanzang visited the Chālukya kingdom and wrote that Pulakeśhin II's 'beneficent actions are felt over a great distance and his subjects obey him with perfect submission'. An outsider's words count for more, because he was not paid by the king.

There is no doubt that in the early 7th century, India was dominated by two great powers: Harṣha north of the Vindhyas and Pulakeśhin II south of them. But Pulakeśhin II was finally defeated by the Pallavas of Kānchī, and by the mid-8th century the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas had replaced the Chālukyas in the Deccan.

Later branches:

• The Western Chālukyas of Kalyāṇī (today's Basavakalyan in northern Karnataka), a revival from the 10th century.
• The Eastern Chālukyas of Vengi (in today's Andhra Pradesh), who became independent as the Badami Chālukyas declined. They fought, and sometimes allied with, the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas, supported Hindu, Jain and Buddhist centres, and saw Telugu and Kannada literature flourish.