Pulakeshin II repulses Harsha on the Narmada

The war is known from the victor’s side. Ravikirti’s Aihole inscription of 634/635 puns on the rival’s name: Harsha, whose feet shone with the jewels of his vassals’ diadems, ‘had his mirth melted away by fear’ when his lordly elephants fell in battle; it adds that Pulakeshin’s own elephants had to avoid the Vindhya hills by the Narmada, since they rivalled the mountains in bulk — words that K. A. Nilakanta Sastri read as meaning that Pulakeshin held the passes with infantry. The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, who visited the Chalukya kingdom (‘Mo-ho-la-cha’, Maharashtra) in 641–642, confirms the outcome: Shiladitya (Harsha) had conquered the nations from east to west, but when he led his best troops and generals against this people, he could not subdue them. Harsha’s court poet Bana passes over the defeat in silence. The victory remained the pride of the dynasty: later Chalukya inscriptions recall it, and the Rashtrakutas, who overthrew the Chalukyas in the 8th century, boasted of defeating the army that had beaten Harsha.

When the battle took place is disputed. K. V. Ramesh and K. A. Nilakanta Sastri dated it to about 612 or earlier, since Pulakeshin’s Hyderabad plates of 613 already boast of his victory over a king ‘who had fought a hundred battles’, presumably Harsha. Shreenand L. Bapat and Pradeep S. Sohoni, who in 2017 published a copper-plate grant of Pulakeshin dated 4 April 619 that names the victory over Harsha, place it in the winter of 618–619, as a grant of Pulakeshin’s brother Vishnuvardhana of about 618 does not yet mention it; the dating to the 630s once proposed by D. Devahuti is no longer accepted. The causes of the war are also uncertain. Historians point out that the Latas, Malavas and Gurjaras on the northern border of the Chalukya kingdom, old enemies of Harsha’s house, had submitted to Pulakeshin or sought his protection.