Dantidurga overthrows the Chalukyas: the rise of the Rashtrakutas
In the early 750s the Rashtrakuta Dantidurga, a feudatory of the Chalukyas of Badami who had built up his power in the northern Deccan and Gujarat, turned on his overlord Kirtivarman II and defeated the Chalukya army; his Samangad copper plates, issued in January 754, already boast of the victory. The Rashtrakutas replaced the Chalukyas as masters of the Deccan for more than two centuries.
- Date
- c. 753year known, approximate
- Place
- Ellora, whose Dashavatara cave bears Dantidurga’s inscriptiontoday: Ellora, Maharashtra, India · South Asia
- Participants
- Dantidurga, Rashtrakutas, Chalukyas of Badami
- Threads
- South Asia (6th–10th c.)
- Also known as
- Samangad copper plates; Samangad inscription; Dashavatara cave inscription; Kirtivarman II; Rashtrakutas; Rashtrakuta dynasty; Самангадские пластины; Киртиварман II; Раштракуты
The contemporary sources are the Samangad copper plates, dated in Shaka 675 and issued in January 754, and a fragmentary inscription in the Dashavatara cave (Cave 15) at Ellora; later Rashtrakuta grants add details. They list the rulers of Kanchi, Kalinga, Kosala, Srishaila, Malava, Lata, Tanka and Sindh among the kings Dantidurga defeated. The Samangad plates boast that he overcame the army of Karnataka — the Chalukya army that had vanquished the lord of Kanchi, the king of Kerala, the Cholas, the Pandyas and Sri Harsha — and that the Chalukya overlord was beaten by a mere frown, without weapons being raised. At Ujjain Dantidurga performed the costly ‘golden womb’ (hiranyagarbha) gift ceremony; according to the Sanjan plates of 871, the ‘lord of the Gurjaras’ served there as his door-keeper. A. S. Altekar thought that Dantidurga took advantage of the exhaustion of the Chalukyas after their long wars with the Pallavas and of the Gujarat kingdoms after the Arab raids, and that he was probably allied with the Pallava king Nandivarman II.
Kirtivarman II was not finished off at once: in 757 he was still encamped with an army on the Bhima, and the final overthrow of the Chalukyas of Badami was probably the work of Dantidurga’s uncle and successor Krishna I. Dantidurga himself died young and without a son, not long after 754. V. S. Sukthankar and D. R. Bhandarkar doubted the authenticity of the Samangad plates on palaeographic grounds; Altekar defended them, and 753 remains the usual date for the fall of the Chalukyas.
Connections
Related events
- Pulakeshin I fortifies Vatapi: the rise of the Chalukyas of Badami543 · South Asiathe end of the Chalukya kingdom of Vatapi, whose rise Pulakeshin I had marked in 543
- Pulakeshin II repulses Harsha on the Narmadabetween 610 and 619 · South Asiathe Samangad plates boast that Dantidurga beat the Chalukya army that had once defeated Harsha
- Narasimhavarman I takes Vatapi, the Chalukya capitalbetween 642 and 643 · South AsiaA. S. Altekar saw the Chalukyas as exhausted by their long wars with the Pallavas
- Indian kings repel the Arab raids from Sind: Nagabhata I and the battle of Navsari723 – between 738 and 739 · South Asiain A. S. Altekar’s view, the Gujarat kingdoms exhausted by the Arab raids fell easily to Dantidurga
- Krishna I carves the Kailasa temple at Ellorabetween 756 and 774 · South AsiaKrishna I succeeded his nephew Dantidurga and completed the overthrow of the Chalukyas
Adjacent events in the thread
- Gopala becomes king: the rise of the Pala dynastybetween 750 and 756 · South Asia
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Donation of PepinApril 754 – 756
- Mission of Boniface in Germany15 May 719 – 5 June 754
Eastern Europe
- Founding of Ladoga753
- Volyntsevo culture: the Slavs of the Dnieper Left Bank in the Khazar agebetween 700 and 750 – between 813 and 833
- The Khazar rulers adopt Judaismbetween 740 and 861
- Saltovo-Mayaki culturec. 750 – between 900 and 950
Balkans and Anatolia
- Byzantine Iconoclasmbetween 726 and 730 – 11 March 843
Middle East and Egypt
- Abu Hanifa and Malik: the oldest surviving Sunni schools of lawbetween 737 and 738 – 795
Central and Northern Asia
- Trisong Detsen: the Tibetan Empire at its height and the founding of Samyebetween 755 and 756 – 797
East Asia
- Tianbao War: Nanzhao destroys the Tang armies750 – between 25 June and 23 July 754
- Emperor Shōmu’s Great Buddha of Tōdai-ji6 November 743 – 26 May 752
- Kim Dae-seong builds Bulguksa and the Seokguram grotto751 – c. 775
- Reign of Emperor Xuanzong: the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras8 September 712 – 12 August 756
North America
- The Late Woodland period in eastern North Americac. 500 – c. 1000
- Pueblo I: villages of surface rooms on the Colorado Plateauc. 750 – c. 900
- Plum Bayou Mounds: a planned ceremonial centre in the Arkansas valleyc. 650 – c. 1050
Latin America
- Wari culture and the Middle Horizon state in the Central Andesc. 600 – c. 1000
- Tiwanaku culture at its height by Lake Titicacac. 600 – c. 1000
- Nazca culture and the Nazca Linesbetween 200 and 100 BC – between 500 and 800