Rashtrakuta dynasty

Origins and rise

The Rashtrakutas emerged as feudatories of the Chalukyas of Badami (Vatapi) in the Deccan, with early branches of the family attested in inscriptions from the 6th century onward serving under Chalukya and other regional overlords. The imperial line was founded by Dantidurga (r. c. 735–756 CE), who first served as a Chalukya vassal, campaigned successfully on their behalf against the Arabs of Sindh and the Gurjaras, and then turned on his overlord: around 753 CE he defeated the Badami Chalukya king Kirtivarman II and proclaimed independence, performing the hiranyagarbha ("golden womb") ritual to assert his new sovereign status. His uncle and successor Krishna I (r. c. 756–774) completed the conquest of the remaining Chalukya territories and pushed Rashtrakuta power south into Karnataka.

Expansion under later rulers

Krishna I's son Govinda II reigned briefly before being overthrown by his brother Dhruva Dharavarsha (r. c. 780–793), who drew the Rashtrakutas into the long three-way contest for control of the Gangetic city of Kannauj, fought against the Gurjara-Pratihara king Vatsaraja and the Pala king Dharmapala of Bengal — a struggle continued by his son Govinda III (r. c. 793–814), who defeated the Pratihara king Nagabhata II and briefly received the homage of both the Pala and Pratihara courts, extending Rashtrakuta influence, according to Rashtrakuta inscriptions, from the Himalayan foothills to Kanyakumari.

Amoghavarsha I (r. c. 814–878), Govinda III's son, had the longest reign of the dynasty and shifted the capital to Manyakheta (modern Malkhed, Karnataka), which remained the Rashtrakuta seat thereafter. His reign was less martial than his predecessors' and more marked by cultural patronage; Arab travellers and geographers of the period — including the merchant Sulaiman, writing around 851 CE — ranked the Rashtrakuta king among the four great monarchs of the world, alongside the Caliph of Baghdad, the Byzantine emperor, and the emperor of Tang China.

Later rulers renewed northern campaigns: Indra III (r. c. 914–929) sacked Kannauj itself in 916, and Krishna III (r. c. 939–967), the dynasty's last major conqueror, invaded the Tamil country, defeated the Chola prince Rajaditya at the Battle of Takkolam in 949 — Rajaditya was killed in the fighting — and is said to have set up a pillar of victory as far south as Rameswaram.

Administration

The empire was organized into rashtras (provinces), further divided into vishayas (districts) and smaller bhuktis, with feudatory dynasties — including the Silaharas of Konkan, the Gangas of Talakad, and the Alupas of South Canara — governing as tributaries under the paramount Rashtrakuta king. Royal land grants to brahmins, temples, and Jain institutions were recorded on copper plates, which, alongside a smaller number of stone inscriptions, form the bulk of the surviving primary evidence for Rashtrakuta history, since no dynastic chronicle comparable to Kashmir's Rajatarangini survives from the period.

Religion and cultural patronage

The Rashtrakutas patronized Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism without exclusive favor to any one tradition. Krishna I, who commissioned the Shiva-dedicated Kailasa Temple, was a Shaiva by personal devotion, while several later rulers show marked Jain sympathies: Amoghavarsha I is traditionally said to have inclined toward Jainism in his later years and was patron to the Jain scholar-monk Jinasena, and Indra IV, a still later Rashtrakuta prince, is recorded as having died by sallekhana, the Jain rite of ritual fasting unto death, at Shravanabelagola in Karnataka. This pluralism is visible directly in the rock-cut monuments the dynasty sponsored.

The Ellora Caves and the Kailasa Temple

The Ellora complex, cut into the Charanandri hills near modern Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), Maharashtra, comprises 34 caves excavated across some four centuries, from roughly the 6th to the 10th century CE, by successive dynasties: earlier Buddhist viharas and chaityas (Caves 1–12), a larger group of Hindu temples (Caves 13–29) begun under the Kalachuris and continued under the Rashtrakutas, and Jain caves (Caves 30–34) excavated last, during the Rashtrakuta period proper.

The centerpiece is the Kailasa Temple (Cave 16), commissioned by Krishna I in the second half of the 8th century and dedicated to Shiva. It is the largest monolithic rock-cut structure known, excavated downward from a single basalt outcrop rather than built up from a foundation — sculptors removed an estimated 200,000 tons of rock to leave a freestanding temple complex, complete with a towering vimana, pillared mandapas, a bridge linking the shrine to a separate Nandi pavilion, and a sanctum housing a Shiva linga. Its walls carry extensive relief carving, including scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata and a celebrated panel of Ravana attempting to shake Mount Kailasa.

Literature

Rashtrakuta patronage produced some of the earliest surviving literary works in Kannada alongside a substantial Sanskrit output. Amoghavarsha I is credited with the Kavirajamarga, the oldest available treatise on poetics in Kannada. Under his patronage the Jain scholar Jinasena composed the Sanskrit Adipurana, and the mathematician Mahaviracharya dedicated his Ganitasarasangraha, an important early treatise on arithmetic, to the same king.

Decline

Rashtrakuta power weakened rapidly after Krishna III's death in 967. His successors, Khottiga and Karka II, faced a devastating raid on Manyakheta itself by the Paramara king Siyaka of Malwa in 972, and the following year, c. 973, the Rashtrakuta feudatory Tailapa II overthrew Karka II and founded the Western Chalukya (Kalyani Chalukya) dynasty in the Rashtrakutas' place, ending roughly two and a quarter centuries of Rashtrakuta paramountcy in the Deccan.