Kadamba dynasty

Mayūraśarman

The Talagunda pillar inscription tells the dynasty's founding story: Mayūraśarman, a brahmin student, went to Kāñcī to study, was humiliated in a quarrel with a Pallava horseman, abandoned his studies in anger, took up arms in the forests, and made himself strong enough that the Pallavas came to terms and granted him territory. He changed the ending of his name from -śarman to -varman, the ending proper to a kṣatriya, and his descendants ruled from Banavāsi.

Whatever its literary shaping, the account is unusual: dynasties normally claim descent from gods or ancient lineages, and this one records its founder changing class within a single lifetime.

Language and religion

The Halmidi inscription, generally dated to about 450 CE and attributed to the Kadamba period, is the earliest known inscription in Kannada, and marks the point at which the regional language enters the epigraphic record alongside Sanskrit and Prakrit. The dynasty's own charters are mostly in Sanskrit.

The Kadambas patronised Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava temples and were also substantial patrons of Jainism, which remained strong in Karnataka for centuries afterwards. Their temple building at Banavāsi and Aihole belongs to the formative period of Deccan temple architecture.

Division and end

The kingdom divided between branches at Banavāsi and Triparvata and was eventually absorbed by the Chalukyas of Bādāmi in the sixth century. A later and separate Kadamba house ruled Goa from the tenth to the fourteenth century, claiming descent from the Banavāsi line and building the temple at Tambdi Surla, the only one of its monuments to survive largely intact.