Viṣṇukuṇḍin dynasty

Rise

The Viṣṇukuṇḍins emerged in Telangana and expanded east into the deltas, absorbing Śālaṅkāyana territory. Their kings claim in their charters to have performed the horse sacrifice and a long series of Vedic rites — Mādhavavarman I is credited with eleven horse sacrifices and a thousand other offerings, figures that are conventional rather than countable but that register a deliberate programme of Brahmanical legitimation.

They also married into the Vākāṭaka house of the northern Deccan, which links them to the most important dynastic network of the period.

Building

The rock-cut caves at Undavalli, on the Krishna opposite Vijayawada, are generally attributed to this dynasty: a multi-storeyed excavation in a hillside containing a large reclining Viṣṇu, alongside shrines that appear to have been Buddhist in origin and Brahmanical in later use. The caves at Mogalrajapuram belong to the same milieu.

This is the period in which the Andhra country's religious landscape shifts decisively. The great Buddhist establishments of the Krishna valley, which had dominated the region for six centuries, are in decline, and royal patronage moves to Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava temples.

The dynasty fell in the early seventh century to Pulakeśin II of Bādāmi, who installed his brother Kubja Viṣṇuvardhana at Vengī — the beginning of the Eastern Chalukya line.